The Artimino Meetings represent a periodical occasion of study and debate between researchers and practitioners, public and private ones, on the problems of local development. Since the first edition in 1990, the Meetings have adopted the industrial district as their fundamental conceptual framework, and have used Tuscany and Prato as their “laboratories”. Building on the industrial district framework, various models and experiences of local and regional development, either Italian or international, have been discussed.

The second series of the Artimino Meetings, started with the 2007 edition, has focused on the local and social varieties of high technology industries, inventors and innovations in Italy. The 2008, 2009, and 2010, editions of the meetings have hosted the presentation of three original researches, which have led to the publication of three reports on local development, and subsequently of three books edited by Il Mulino. Particular attention has been paid to the role of innovation policies and on a comparative analysis of Tuscany and other European regions.

The third series, scheduled for 2011-2013, seeks to combine the previous lines of research and debate with a new reflection on the relationship between industrial innovation and change in Tuscany and in other European regions. Strategies and structures of industrial and innovation policies are at the center of this new reflection. These kind of policies are increasingly required in order to support innovation and change in the old manufacturing regions of Europe. As it is well known, contemporary trends in the international division of labor is marked by dynamic innovative accelerated pervasiveness of scientific research, joint development of manufacturing and service functions, increasing breakdown of components of manufacturing production cycles, and increased competition within (and between) integrated areas and highly dynamic and socially sustainable local systems.

The basic idea that have emerged in the last day of discussion of the 2011 edition of Artimino is to analyze the new economic geography of Italian industry. After many years of great emphasis on local development trajectories, during which we have accumulated many analysis based on case studies that have provided us with extensive details on the typical characteristics of the Italian and Tuscan manufacture, we have witnessed a phase of relative little interest for the analysis of the territory. During such phase, the Italian industry has gone through some changes. The result is that our understanding of the current morphology and organization model of the Italian industry is not supported by an adequate interpretative model. Therefore, our aim is to understand what are the current features of the industrial districts that have guided the development of Italian industry in the second half of the twentieth century, and to understand to what extent new forces of development, be they alternative to the "old" industrial districts or complementary to them, are rooted in local systems. At the same time, the Artimino Meeting is also aimed at analyze the way in which new policies (and institutions) acting in a system-based perspective may impact on the new economic geography of Italian industry.

Scientific Committee
Marco Bellandi coordinator, Gabi Dei Ottati, Paolo Giovannini, Carlo Trigilia
with:
- Technical and scientific support provided by Annalisa Caloffi and Massimo Bressan, and the collaboration of IRPET
- the advices of the Artimino’s companionship
- organizational support of IRIS
- financial support and auspices of the Tuscany Region