Smact

North-East Competence Centre: production value up 55% by 2025

Chairwoman Di Maria: the results for 2025 demonstrate that the centre has reached full operational maturity

by Pietro Menzani

18 June 2026

3' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

Key points

‘Governance efficiency’
Customers
A statement from the company’s senior management

3' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

Another positive result for Smact, the leading Industry 4.0 centre of excellence for the North-East, which in 2025 closed the financial year in profit for the third consecutive time. Last year, the company recorded a production value of 16.5 million euros, marking a 55.4 per cent increase compared with 2024 and exceeding the targets set out in the business plan. This is according to the 2025 Annual Report, presented on 17 June in Verona by the chairwoman Eleonora Di Maria in the presence of shareholders and partners.

“The Competence Centre – explains the company – is therefore closing the year with results that reinforce its ability to systematise 4.0–5.0 excellence and to create virtuous cycles of ‘cross-fertilisation’ between technology providers, end users, universities and research centres.” Crucial to the Centre’s performance have been the Iriss collaborative research and innovation projects, which are supported by PNRR funds, and the growth of innovation and training services aimed at businesses.

‘Governance efficiency’

Smact – established in 2018 by universities, research centres and private companies in the Triveneto region to foster collaboration between the research sector and industry in the adoption of innovative technologies - by 2025, it had proved to be a financially sound organisation with no debt; these factors, combined with its ability to successfully implement projects, led the Ministry of Enterprise and Made in Italy to allocate additional resources to the Centre as part of the PNRR funds.

According to the company, this is “confirmation of a selective award, reserved for a limited number of technology transfer organisations at national level, which attests to the efficiency of their governance and operational structure”.

Customers

A marked increase can also be seen in the figures relating to the number of clients. Whilst 49 companies were supported in 2023, this figure rose to 216 in 2024 and reached 276 in 2025. And this positive trend shows no sign of slowing down in 2026: 164 companies have already been served this year, with operations firmly centred in the North-East but also expanding nationwide.

Since the launch of the funding streams linked to the PNRR, Smact has signed over 1,300 agreements with 557 client companies, including 405 SMEs – accounting for 73 per cent of the total – comprising 255 small enterprises, 130 medium-sized enterprises and 20 start-ups and innovative SMEs. The total value of the innovation projects developed stood at approximately €29.3 million.

A statement from the company’s senior management

According to Eleonora Di Maria, president of the Centre, “the results for 2025 demonstrate that Smact has reached full operational maturity, having exceeded the targets set out in its business plan and established itself as a key partner for hundreds of SMEs in the North-East. The public funds entrusted to us represent an investment with a very high multiplier effect for the region, both through the services provided to businesses and by making the most of the demonstration facilities in Padua, where businesses find opportunities for practical application, experiential training and new ideas’.

Matteo Faggin, Director-General of the Competence Centre, reiterates that “the third consecutive year of profit demonstrates how Smact has been able to transform the extraordinary opportunity presented by the NRRP into structural and sustainable growth. Today, we are no longer ‘just’ a technology transfer organisation, but a genuine industrial partner. The most encouraging figure is the strong expansion of our market-facing services, a sign that businesses – especially SMEs – choose us for the real value we bring, and not just for access to co-funding.”

Faggin concludes that ‘backed by a sound financial position, and thanks to the new ministerial programme, our focus now shifts to the implementation of the 2026–2030 Plan: the major challenge in the coming years will no longer be merely to ensure the adoption of these technologies, but to help our companies attract and train the talent needed to manage them”.

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