Rome, 17 May 2023 - “ROAD - Rome Advanced District”, a network of companies formed by Eni, Acea, Autostrade per l'Italia, Bridgestone, Cisco, Gruppo FS and NextChem (MAIRE) is launched today. The aim of the project, based in the Ostiense district of Rome at the site of the area’s Gasometer facility, is to develop the first technological innovation district dedicated to developing new energy supply chains, applied industrial research collaborations and academic research.
The Gasometer in Ostiense - a building complex owned by Eni covering a total surface area of approximately 13 hectares and currently undergoing redevelopment and remediation - dates back to the early twentieth century and is of great historic and industrial importance. It is already home to the Joule Business School, Eni's new research laboratories and the ZERO accelerator (part of the CDP National Network dedicated to funding the best clean tech start-ups).
The ROAD network's goals will be:
- to develop, promote and accelerate innovative projects and scientific, industrial and technological research;
- to establish supply chain collaborations between the R&D departments of companies, universities, research centres, start-ups and innovative SMEs on energy and digital transition technologies;
- to use the Ostiense asset as a “living lab” to experiment with emerging technologies to support urban communities;
- to attract and train talent to develop new professions.
The network’s impact areas will range from technologies for decarbonization, circular economy (water and waste management) and energy efficiency and storage, to sustainable mobility, smart cities and the promotion of health and safety. ROAD’s goals will also include developing a model for the energy districts of the future, starting with an analysis of sustainable mobility and features of smart cities.
The first shared working tool developed by ROAD will be a metaverse environment, a digital twin, through which we will experiment combining existing projects with visions of the future to design the best solutions to support urban communities.
All of ROAD's co-founders are also involved, each according to their expertise, in the development and acceleration of some industrial supply chains, starting with the monitoring and improvement of road paving; bringing together technologies from companies in the transport sector, chemistry and IT to propose innovative answers.
Research into and development of new materials, collection methods and material reuse will be the main focus of ROAD's activities, as well as the study and testing of new digital solutions that will pave the way for increasingly sustainable mobility.
In addition to research collaborations, ROAD will establish training programs to enrich the skills of partner companies, encourage internal co-innovation, test integrated mobility solutions (leveraging the use of the Ostiense asset) and set up a joint observatory on labour market transformation in relation to these newly developed supply chains.
The same area that supplied energy to industrial Rome in the early twentieth century, will now host technological innovation projects that will support companies to reach the goals of Agenda 2030.
The area's industrial history, which made it the driving force of modernity in the past, will once again become a national reference point for new energies.
Eni and FS are related parties. Both Companies applied its own internal Procedure.
