Research, Development and Innovation Projects for Territorial Cohesion in Inland Marginal Areas: Economic Analysis of Social and Cultural Benefits

To counteract the phenomena of demographic decline and marginalisation of inland areas, there is an urgent need for strategies and policy interventions to prevent the loss of a vast historical and cultural heritage and to trigger development and territorial cohesion processes. Various programmes and intervention strategies introduced by European and non-European governments show that investing in Research, Development, and Innovation (RDI) can be a crucial line of action for the economic valorisation of marginalised urban contexts. However, there is a lack of an operational framework that can support analysts in selecting effective intervention strategies. RDI projects are in fact complex interventions that, first, involve a multiplicity of actors and target groups. In addition, they are initiatives that generate a series of socio-cultural and environmental externalities that need to be adequately considered in the evaluations in order to make a correct judgement on the social profitability of the investments under analysis. The aim of this study is to define a decision support model for RDI projects promoted within innovation ecosystems, which in turn must be included in a programmatic design of an ecoregion or macro-region. By means of such an economic analysis model, we intend to address the analyst in the: (a) estimation of social costs and benefits deriving from a RDI infrastructure; (b) evaluation of the social return on investment; (c) assessment of the investment risk variables and critical issues to be addressed to define strategic guidelines for the stablishment and management of innovation ecosystems. The conducted research is a starting point for application to real case studies that will allow the defined model to be tested.