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Documented examples

Each record describes something a country built that the indicators do not capture. The source provides the published number; the mechanism is our interpretation.

Scores describe outcomes. These records describe how a country acted, what it needed and what happened. 742 of 742 records include a mechanism. They do not affect scores.

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7 of 742 deliveries

Coordination

2 deliveries linked to University-industry collaboration, Public-private collaboration.

Italysince 2022delivered and closedbears on University-industry collaboration

Dottorati innovativi con le imprese (PNRR M4C2 investment 3.3), XXXVIII cycle

Italy's Ministry of University and Research funded 1,708 company co-financed innovative doctoral scholarships in the 38th doctoral cycle (academic year 2022/2023), against the 5,000 that decree 352/2022 had allocated for that year, and cut the measure's target from 15,000 scholarships and 450 million euros to 6,000 scholarships and 360 million euros.

1,708 doctoral scholarships, scholarships assigned ('borse assegnate'), xxxviii cycle, summed over tabella a of d.d. 1424/2024, 2022/2023 academic year. 5,000 doctoral scholarships, scholarships planned for 2022/2023 by d.m. 352 of 9 april 2022 (allocation, not delivery), 2022. Ministero dell'Universitร  e della Ricerca, Decreto Direttoriale n. 1424 del 26 settembre 2024 (rideterminazione, XXXVIII ciclo, ex D.D. 2153/2022), as archived by the Internet Archive, retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

The ministry offered universities EU recovery money for doctoral scholarships on condition that a company co-financed each one and hosted the candidate, then cut the target and raised the public share when firms took up far fewer places than planned.

Preconditions

  • Universities accredited to run doctoral programmes with industrial partners
  • Firms with research functions willing to pay half a three-year scholarship
  • A temporary EU recovery budget large enough to fund thousands of scholarships at once

Where else it has been used: Industrial doctorate schemes funded from regular budgets (dnk-erhvervsforsker, fra-cifre) grew over decades; the Italian attempt to buy thousands in one year ran into the limit of firm demand.

Limits: The 1,708 is our sum of the 'Borse assegnate' column over 533 rows of Tabella A (PDF pages 3 to 21), which prints no total; it agrees with the decree's Article 2 total of 85,400,000 euros at 50,000 euros a scholarship. mur.gov.it refused script requests, so the cited copy is the Internet Archive's. The 15,000 target, the 450 million euro original allocation and its redetermination to 360 million euros are in the decree's preamble; the 6,000 figure is on the ministry's measure page (archived 13 June 2026, https://web.archive.org/web/20260613095831/https://www.mur.gov.it/it/pnrr/misure-e-componenti/m4c2/investimento-33-introduzione-di-dott-innovativi-che), not in this decree. The 5,000 allocated by decree 352/2022 covered the 2022/2023 year across courses accredited under both the XXXVII and XXXVIII cycle rules; we read all of them as XXXVIII cycle scholarships, which the decree does not state in so many words. A scholarship counts as assigned when funded, not when the doctorate is completed, and firm co-financing is a condition of the measure rather than a separately counted payment. The shortfall against the 5,000 and the cut in the target are a plan that was not met, not a loss from a delivered peak, so the record is not classed as a reversal: it shows that far fewer firms co-funded than the ministry budgeted for, and the decree's response was to raise the ministry's unit contribution from 30,000 to up to 60,000 euros per scholarship (capped at 20,000 euros extra for this cycle), which shifts cost from firms to the state. Later cycles (decree 117/2023) are not counted here, and the measure ended with the recovery plan in 2026.

Italysince 2016still operatingbears on Public-private collaboration

SPID, the public digital identity issued by accredited private providers

Italy's Agency for Digital Italy runs SPID, the public digital identity system in which accredited identity providers, private firms such as Aruba, InfoCert, Namirial and Register alongside state-controlled Poste Italiane and public companies such as Lepida and InfoCamere, issue the credentials under agreements with the agency, and by 8 October 2025 41 million SPID identities had been issued, when the agency extended the providers' agreements to 2027.

41,000,000 identities, spid digital identities issued, 2025-10-08. 55,000,000 cards, electronic identity cards (cie) issued, the state-only alternative (of which 9 million cie credentials activated), 2025-10-08. Agenzia per l'Italia Digitale (AgID), SPID, rinnovate le convenzioni con gli Identity Provider fino al 2027 (news, 8 October 2025), retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

The digital agency set technical rules and signed agreements with accredited identity providers, who verify citizens and issue credentials that every public administration must accept, so private firms carried the cost of enrolment while the state set the standard.

Preconditions

  • Firms and public companies with existing identity verification channels (post offices, trust service providers, chambers of commerce)
  • A legal mandate obliging public administrations to accept the credential
  • A fee model or public payment that keeps providers in the scheme, which is what the 2025 renewal negotiated

Where else it has been used: Sweden's BankID (swe-bankid) and Denmark's MitID (dnk-mitid) put banks at the centre; SPID spread issuance across many accredited providers, and Italy is now weighing a return to the state card.

Limits: The 41 million is a rounded figure in a news item, not a statistics series, and counts identities issued, not active users; one person can hold SPID from more than one provider, so the count overstates people. The mix of providers is read from the agency's list of accredited identity providers (https://www.agid.gov.it/it/piattaforme/spid/identity-provider-accreditati), which shows the first accreditations in December 2015, the first agreements in February 2016, an additional act signed with each active provider on 8 October 2025, and one provider (In.Te.S.A.) that ceased in April 2023; the agency publishes no split of identities by provider, so the private share of issuance is not known, and the largest provider, Poste Italiane, is state-controlled. The future of the partnership is uncertain: the news item frames the extension as accompanying a transition toward a single national identity built on the state-issued CIE and the IT Wallet. If the government moves logins to CIE the partnership will shrink; this record does not count that as erosion because the item reports no loss yet. The item gives no transaction figure, so the record shows reach, not use. The 55 million CIE in the second metric are cards issued; the same item says only 9 million CIE digital credentials had been activated, so the two counts in the item's 96 million total are not like for like.

Learning

1 delivery linked to Adult learning participation.

Italysince 2020still operatingbears on Adult learning participation

Fondo nuove competenze

Italy's Fondo nuove competenze, set up in 2020 and run by the national labour policy agency ANPAL through two notices, was created to pay for working hours employers turned into training under union agreements, and by the end of 2021 it had covered almost 30 million hours of training for almost 270,000 workers, about 110 hours each.

270,000 workers, workers trained under the first notice of the fondo nuove competenze, per anpal's thematic review of 30 december 2021, 2021-12. 30 million hours, working hours converted to training, 2021-12. ANPAL, Agenzia Nazionale Politiche Attive del Lavoro (archive maintained by the Ministry of Labour and Social Policies), retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

ANPAL paid employers for working hours converted into training, but only where a collective agreement with the unions set out the cut in hours and the skills plan, which turned a COVID income measure into a negotiated training programme.

Preconditions

  • A collective bargaining system able to sign thousands of firm-level agreements quickly
  • European Social Fund money to co-finance the wage cost
  • Regional bodies able to assess and certify training plans, even if mostly by tacit approval

Limits: The figures come from ANPAL's own thematic review of December 2021, an interim count for the first notice; the final total for that edition is not on this page, and larger figures circulating elsewhere were not verified. The page is an archive: ANPAL was abolished and the fund passed to the Ministry of Labour, and the page says further funding is planned under the Programma nazionale Giovani, donne e lavoro. About 270,000 workers is under one percent of Italian adults (our rough computation), so this is a national programme that barely moves the participation share the indicator asks for. It is a wage subsidy as much as a training programme: the fund reimburses hours employers took out of production, and in 2020 to 2021 that also kept people employed during COVID restrictions. Training content and hours are certified by employers and union agreements, and ANPAL notes that the regions assessing training plans relied widely on tacit approval (silenzio-assenso), so quality control was light.

Experimentation

1 delivery linked to Firms through regulatory sandboxes.

Italysince 2021operating below its peakbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes

Italy's FinTech regulatory sandbox, and its contraction

Italy's FinTech sandbox, run by the Bank of Italy, Consob and IVASS under the MEF's FinTech Committee, admitted 16 projects from its first application window (November 2021 to January 2022) but only 3 from its second (November to December 2023), after applications fell by about 80.7 percent.

3 projects admitted, projects admitted to the sandbox from the second application window (2 by ivass, 1 by the bank of italy, 0 by consob), 2024. 16 projects admitted, projects admitted from the first application window, the peak (13 by the bank of italy, 3 by ivass), 2022. Ministry of Economy and Finance (Department of the Treasury), Relazione sulle attivita del Comitato FinTech 2023-2024, retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

The MEF's FinTech Committee opened timed application windows in which each supervisor admitted projects to tests of six months, extendable to at most 18 months, with tailored conditions, and demand fell once operators learned how heavy admission was and found lighter informal channels at the Bank of Italy.

Preconditions

  • A statutory sandbox shared across three supervisors with separate admission procedures
  • Lighter informal innovation channels at the central bank competing for the same applicants
  • Short, infrequent application windows that make the sandbox slow relative to product cycles

Limits: The counts are projects, not firms: the IVASS projects in the second window involved several firms each (for example ITAS Mutua with ANIA, Autovia and Connexa InsTech), while the one Bank of Italy project was a single FinTech operator, so the indicator's firms-per-million figure would need a firm count the report does not give. Per million people the sandbox admitted roughly 0.27 projects from the first window and 0.05 from the second; those ratios are our computation with a population the source does not state. The sandbox runs in windows rather than continuously, so the two numbers are two cohorts, not two years. The MEF attributes the fall to an admission process that operators and the supervisors themselves found burdensome and to the Bank of Italy's informal channels (Canale Fintech, Milano Hub) absorbing demand, so part of the decline is innovation dialogue moving outside the sandbox, which the indicator would not see. The Bank of Italy's sandbox page shows both cohorts as concluded and lists no window after 2023 as of retrieval; a new window or a redesigned regime would change the status. The report is the MEF reporting on a regime it chairs, and the MEF itself judges the sandbox experience 'soddisfacente' while calling for procedural simplification.

Adaptability

2 deliveries linked to Institutional responsiveness, Disaster preparedness and recovery.

Italysince 2020delivered and closedbears on Institutional responsiveness

Cassa integrazione con causale Covid-19, 2020

Italy's Cura Italia decree of 17 March 2020 created wage supplementation with a Covid-19 cause across ordinary CIG, the solidarity funds and CIG in deroga, and INPS recorded 5.27 million beneficiaries in April 2020 and 2.8 billion authorised hours from March to August, but about 83 percent of firms asked INPS to pay workers directly and the institute's own report records the resulting delay in payments for the first period.

5,274,000 beneficiaries, beneficiaries of wage supplementation with covid-19 cause in the month, 2020-04. 2.8 billion hours, hours authorised with covid-19 cause, march to august 2020, 2020-08. INPS, XIX Rapporto annuale (October 2020), retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

The government extended the existing wage supplementation funds to a Covid-19 cause by decree, covered firms outside the ordinary funds through the solidarity funds and the regional CIG in deroga, and let firms shift payment to INPS, which then had to authorise and pay an unprecedented volume at once.

Preconditions

  • Standing wage supplementation funds with an authorising and paying institute
  • Decree-law powers that take effect on publication
  • Payment capacity at the paying institute, which is the precondition that strained here

Where else it has been used: Belgium (bel-chomage-temporaire-corona) also paid workers directly through existing bodies and paid within the month; Italy's direct-payment option moved the cash-flow burden from firms to INPS and slowed the first payments.

Limits: The figures are in a 482-page PDF: the monthly beneficiary counts are Tavola 1.7 (PDF pages 43 to 44, in thousands: 4,240 in March, 5,274 in April across ordinary CIG, solidarity funds and CIG in deroga), the 2.8 billion hours on PDF page 16 and again on page 33, and the direct-payment share and the delay in footnote 12 (PDF page 40). The institute reports on its own delivery. Speed is mixed: the rule changed within days of the lockdown, but the decree let any firm request direct payment by INPS without proof of financial difficulty, about 83 percent did, and the report says this produced a delay in payments, especially for the first period requested; it gives no figure for the delay. Authorised hours are not hours used: the report estimates take-up at 63 percent for March and 60 percent for April. The report itself judges the solidarity funds that covered smaller firms evidently inadequate, and the CIG in deroga ran through the regions, which added a step before payment.

Italysince 2016still operatingbears on Disaster preparedness and recovery

Reconstruction after the 2016 and 2017 Central Italy earthquakes

Italy's Extraordinary Commissioner for reconstruction after the 2016 Central Italy earthquakes reported that by 31 May 2026 private reconstruction had received 36,149 grant applications for 17.82 billion euros, approved 24,650, granted 12.59 billion and paid 7.99 billion, and that 14,968 of 23,361 authorised building sites had been completed across the 138 municipalities of the crater.

14,968 building sites, private reconstruction building sites completed (cantieri conclusi), 2026-05-31. 23,361 building sites, private reconstruction building sites authorised (cantieri autorizzati), 2026-05-31. Commissario Straordinario Ricostruzione Sisma 2016 (Presidency of the Council of Ministers), Rapporto sulla ricostruzione Centro Italia post sisma 2016, Anno 2026, Executive Summary, retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

Parliament created a dedicated extraordinary commissioner with ordinance powers, regional special reconstruction offices and a single digital platform for grant files, and the commissioner pays reconstruction grants for private homes and runs a programme of public works across four regions.

Preconditions

  • A national grant scheme that pays the full cost of rebuilding damaged primary homes
  • Regional reconstruction offices able to process tens of thousands of technical files
  • A legislative decree (D.L. 189/2016) that keeps the commissioner in place across changes of government

Where else it has been used: The same model was applied in 2025 to the Ancona and Umbertide earthquakes, according to the commissioner's own site; the Emilia 2012 and L'Aquila 2009 reconstructions used regional and municipal structures instead.

Limits: The commissioner reports on its own programme, and the executive summary is written as advocacy ('La cura funziona'). The figures are in a PDF, on PDF pages 3 to 5. The host sisma2016data.it rate-limited scripted requests (HTTP 429), so the PDF was read through a fetch tool, not curl. Ten years after the August 2016 shock, about 64 percent of authorised private sites were complete and less than half of the 17.82 billion requested had been paid; the report itself says 69 percent of the payments were made from 2023 onwards, so most of the recovery happened six to ten years after the earthquake, which is evidence of slow recovery as much as of capacity. Applications and sites are counts of files and works, not households rehoused; the report gives one household figure, over 1,300 families (about 2,800 people) returning home in the last year, without a cumulative total. Public reconstruction, 3,667 programmed works for over 4.85 billion euros, is reported as reaching 40 percent of sites under way or finished. The record shows recovery after a shock, not preparation before one: Italy's seismic prevention and the emergency response in 2016 are outside it.

Building

1 delivery linked to Large project delivery.

Italysince 2003still operatingbears on Large project delivery

MOSE, the Venice lagoon flood barrier

Works on MOSE, Italy's system of 78 mobile gates at Venice's three lagoon inlets, began in 2003. All the gates were first raised on 10 July 2020, and 6,689.07 million euros had been appropriated by mid-2022 with the works about 95 percent complete and still unfinished past their planned 2021 completion.

6,689.07 EUR million, total funds appropriated for mose by the end of the first half of 2022, 2022-06. 95 % complete, share of the infrastructure completed at 17 june 2022, against a completion planned for 2021, 2022-06-17. Corte dei conti, Sezione centrale di controllo sulla gestione delle Amministrazioni dello Stato, deliberazione 92/2024/G (follow-up to deliberazione 35/2023/G), retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

The state handed design and construction of the lagoon barrier to a single concessionaire consortium under a special law for Venice, and when delays and judicial proceedings stalled it, it appointed extraordinary commissioners to finish and operate the gates provisionally.

Preconditions

  • A special legal regime and dedicated national funding for Venice dating from the 1980s
  • A single-concessionaire model that concentrated design, construction and control in one body
  • A visible, recurring flood threat that kept funding flowing through repeated delays

Limits: This is a delivery record with a bad cost and schedule history, not a success story: the barrier works, but late and expensive. The source gives total appropriations, not a baseline estimate, so a percentage overrun cannot be computed from it; the Court's report names a 'progressive increase in costs' without a starting figure here, and the original estimate quoted in the press is not used. Appropriated funds are not spending, and the total includes related works (Piano Europa, decarbonisation, San Marco basilica defences). The 95 percent completion figure is from June 2022 and the 2021 completion date had already passed; the record does not say when, or whether, the works were finished after that. The Court lists well-known judicial proceedings, a progressive increase in costs, technical difficulties, environmental questions and Covid-19 among the complexities of the build. The Court reports the gates have repeatedly protected the city, but the source gives no count of closures, so the record does not claim one.