If the demographic crisis also holds back research and innovation

We live in an era in which major global challenges - from energy transition to digitisation, from artificial intelligence to sustainability - require a decisive and unprecedented acceleration of innovation. Yet a silent but relentless drift threatens to slow us down: the demographic crisis. The data speak for themselves: Italy's falling birth rate has reached an all-time low. According to ISTAT, in 2024 there were 369,944 births, 2.6% less than the previous year; in the first seven months of 2025 births have already dropped by a further 6.3%. But beyond the figure itself, and its obvious economic and social implications, the systemic impact of this decline is worrying: an ageing population means fewer students, fewer graduates, fewer researchers. In other words, less innovation.

Usually when talking about the demographic crisis, public attention focuses mainly on its economic, welfare and social consequences: the sustainability of the pension system, the tax burden on the new generations, the right balance between the active and inactive population. However, an equally relevant, but more silent and long-term effect is rarely considered: the contraction of the country's innovative potential. In fact, the reduction in the youth population has equally significant repercussions on the university system and the country's innovative capacity. An ageing and shrinking population inevitably entails a potential decrease in the number of researchers, technicians and qualified professionals, i.e. those human resources that feed scientific research, technological experimentation and the ability to transfer knowledge to the industrial system. In the absence of an adequate generational change in research centres and companies, the risk is not only economic, but systemic: the ability to regenerate ideas, to generate patents, to compete on innovation - the real engine of sustainable growth - weakens. The risk is that of seeing our most qualified human capital dwindle just when, globally, the hunger for skills is increasing: many brilliant minds are leaving and the country is unable to attract new ones on a comparable scale. The knowledge system - university, research and industry - is therefore called upon to face, and will increasingly face, a structural crisis: a progressive impoverishment of the pool of talent from which to draw and a loss of competitiveness compared to countries that, instead, invest in training and birth rates.

The threat is clear: while research needs on crucial topics such as artificial intelligence, biotechnology and sustainability are increasing, there are fewer researchers available to develop them. The result? The paradox of innovation without innovators in an increasingly fragile ecosystem. Companies are already struggling to find STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) skills: in Italy, almost 7,000 engineers are missing. This was reported by the Study Centre of the National Council of Engineers (CNI), according to which the demand for technical profiles remains very high: more than 24,000 industrial and management engineers, 14,000 civil engineers and 13,000 mechanical engineers will be required in 2024 alone. All this slows down the digital and green transition, reducing the ability to compete in global markets. The demographic crisis, therefore, is not only a welfare problem, but also a strategic factor affecting productivity and our country's ability to remain competitive in the generation and growth of talent as well as in innovation. Faced with this challenge, partial interventions are not enough. A systemic vision is needed.

University and industry once again share the same mission: to remain relevant in a changing world. Business needs advanced skills and applied research, the university needs industrial partners capable of investing in the future. If this link weakens, the whole country suffers. It is therefore necessary to rethink the system and not the individual parts: the demographic decline requires us, among other things, to rethink the organisation of knowledge, the distribution of resources and the relationship between education, research and enterprise. What is needed, therefore, is a new generational pact for knowledge: an alliance between institutions, universities and businesses to restore centrality to human capital, the country's only true strategic infrastructure. We cannot adapt and resign ourselves to the demographic decline: we must react with responsibility, vision and courage. Innovation is not just a technological issue: it is also strongly dependent on the demographic winter. Italy's future is not only measured in GDP, but also in everything that influences it, starting with the ability to generate, nurture and cultivate the minds of tomorrow. To ignore the demographic crisis even in its intellectual dimension would be to condemn our future to irrelevance. All the more reason to curb it by rethinking our future with an overall vision. Only in this way can Italy continue to innovate, grow and compete in the world.