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Prysmian Group – 2015 Sustainability Report
Sustainable Innovation
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62
82
million
invested in R&D
17
R&D
centres
Over
500
professionals
About
4,800
patents
UNIVERSITIES AND RESEARCH CENTRES
Prysmian has established consolidated collaborative relations with major universities (more than 40
agreements) and research centres in various countries around the world: China, Netherlands, New Zealand,
Brazil, Finland, UK, United States, Spain and Italy. Numerous key collaborations include those with
Politecnico di Milano, Centro di Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento em Telecomunicacoes in Brazil, Universitat
Politecnica de Catalunya in Spain and the University of South Carolina in the United States.
Again in North America, the Prysmian Group is an honorary member of NEETRAC (National Electric Energy
Testing Research and Applications Center) at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Collaboration with the universities is strategic for Prysmian, in order to keep constantly updated about all
technological innovations and ensure adoption of the most advanced technologies available to the scientific
community.
During 2015, the Prysmian Group worked with MIP (Politecnico di Milano) to develop a new methodology for
innovation: the design-driven funnel. This methodology defines an innovation process for the development of
new solutions within the cables system.
Specifically, under the supervision of experts from Politecnico di Milano, a team consisting of personnel from
the R&D department and Prysmian's business functions identified four solutions from an initial pool of 70
ideas. This result was achieved, in part, due to the involvement of Group suppliers and customers in the
innovation process. The “design-driven funnel” methodology is an important example of Open Innovation and
was applied to the Oil & Gas and SURF segments, enabling the Group to devise additional innovative
solutions for our customers.