Retaining talent and fostering start-ups: Pavia takes on the challenge of innovation

“The research,” comments Tommaso Rossini, President of Assolombarda’s Pavia branch, “highlights how Pavia possesses solid structural factors for competitiveness: a high density of young students, a vibrant research ecosystem, knowledge-intensive supply chains, businesses increasingly focused on international markets, and a growing emphasis on sustainability. However, to fully capitalise on these strengths, it is necessary to tackle some crucial challenges. Funding infrastructure must be a priority. The first step must be to secure funding for the Pieve Emanuele-Pavia section of the railway quadrupling project and for the new Becca bridge. At the same time, it will be essential to strengthen the ability to retain skilled talent and foster the growth of innovative businesses. The projects contained in the updated Strategic Plan are designed precisely to guide Pavia into a new phase of development, promoting its areas of excellence and accelerating its growth potential. Pavia now has the opportunity to consolidate an increasingly complementary relationship with Milan, leveraging its own specific strengths in production, science and technology and strengthening the dialogue between research, business and the local area.”

The report in detail

Starting with the enabling factors, Pavia’s strength lies in its substantial pool of young students, with over 30,000 enrolled at the University and the University Institute of Advanced Studies, which has expanded significantly in recent years (+17.2% between 2019/2020 and 2024/2025) and is concentrated in high-quality courses (PhD programmes have doubled in six years, with more than 1,300 students currently enrolled).

Above all, there has been a growing appeal to young people from outside the province: in particular, there were around 4,900 students resident in Milan during the last academic year – a thousand more than in 2019 – representing almost a fifth of the total number of students enrolled in the Pavia university system.

This human capital potential does not, however, fully benefit the local area, as many of the graduates trained locally do not stay here to live and work.

Data on the resident population show that in Pavia, the proportion of university graduates aged between 25 and 39 stands at 25.3% in 2024, a figure significantly lower than the Lombardy average (34.4%) and the national average (30.9%); the participation rate in continuing education initiatives is limited to 8%; there are still around 9,700 NEETs (12.7% of 15–29-year-olds in Pavia) despite the substantial improvements made in recent years. Furthermore, as of 2025, almost 43,000 citizens of the province are registered abroad, representing a relatively high proportion of the resident population at 7.9%: 23% are aged between 18 and 34 and, notably, 26% are aged between 35 and 49.

In terms of funding, with Milan firmly at the top, Pavia stands out as the only other regional hub attracting European innovation funding on a competitive basis: €57.2 million in Horizon Europe funding awarded to date, representing 6.1% of the regional total and 1.3% of the Italia total, with the University playing a leading role, but also a diversification that reflects local sectoral specialisations, ranging from organisations active in the life sciences (IRCSS, CNAO, companies), to the IUSS, to research centres and private organisations focused on seismic engineering (in particular, the Eucentre Foundation), to the Chips.IT Foundation.

In terms of digital infrastructure, despite the significant acceleration currently underway, there remains a wide gap to be bridged: the percentage of households in Pavia with a next-generation, ultra-high-capacity connection (FTTH) has jumped to 51.1%, but this is still 20 percentage points below the Lombardy average.

The region’s ability to attract international students is on the rise: they accounted for 5.5% of the total before the pandemic and now stand at nearly 11%, which in absolute terms equates to 59 international students per 10,000 inhabitants – almost the same density as that recorded in Milan (63). In terms of research, Pavia boasts a substantial scientific output (more than 3,800 articles published in 2025, 14.3% of the regional total and 3.7% of the national total), particularly in the field of Life Sciences (53.5% of the provincial total). The proportion of high-quality publications is good (0.9% of the total are highly cited articles) but below the Lombardy average (1.3%), as is the degree of international outreach (53.8% of publications involve a foreign partner compared to 57.7% in the region). Collaboration with industrial partners, however, is modest, with only 2.6% of articles produced in conjunction with a company (4.5% in Lombardy, a figure that is already very low compared to the best European peers).

However, the tangible impact of this research is modest, with a low number of patents (107 patents filed with the European Patent Office between 2020 and 2024, accounting for 1.8% of the total for Lombardy), concentrated in mechatronics (47, particularly machinery for the agricultural, footwear and pharmaceutical sectors), life sciences (24), chemistry (17) and microelectronics (7).

The current state of play regarding innovation is a mixed picture, against which the economic outlook is uncertain: Pavia’s GDP is stagnating in 2025 and the outlook for 2026 is one of caution.

Exports by local firms nevertheless indicate a high level of competitiveness, with 66.9% of overseas sales concentrated in the high-tech and medium-high-tech manufacturing sectors. Employment is also quite high in the most knowledge-intensive sectors of manufacturing and services (35.6% of the total).

However, there is considerable scope for growth compared with neighbouring provinces in terms of new innovative business ventures: in the Pavia area, there are just 121 innovative start-ups and SMEs (1.7% of the regional total), with a total turnover of almost €118 million in 2024 and an added value of €56 million.