Sicily, the California of Europe? Beyond the dream, investment, good governance and culture are needed
Sicily as the “California of Europe”. And Palermo as an international centre of excellence for biotechnology and biomedical research, capable of “attracting young and experienced researchers from all over the world”. This is neither a Sicilian dream nor a propaganda battle about original development strategies for the South, fascinating to talk about but historically unproductive in terms of results. Rather, it is a real project in progress. There is even a Rimed Foundation to manage it, and a funded plan to build an international biotechnology research centre within two years in Carini, a village west of Palermo, near the Punta Raisi airport, named after Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino. Palermo high tech, Sicily, the land of science and quality work.
This was the headline in the influential pages of “Il Sole24Ore” (20th April), in an interview by Paolo Bricco with Giulio Superti-Furga, for twenty years director of the CeMM in Vienna, the research centre for molecular medicine of the Academy of Sciences, and now coordinator of the activities of the Sicilian Foundation: “Today there are three hundred researchers and six biotech companies in the Vienna cluster. Why can’t we do the same in Sicily? It is a complex but wonderful place, with a great desire for rebirth and redemption, capable of hosting a scientific facility of international standard and attracting scientists and researchers from all over the world”.
The Rimed Foundation has five founding partners: the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, the CNR, the Region of Sicily, the American University of Pittsburgh and the Pittsburgh Medical Center, the two healthcare institutions that for more than 25 years have created the Ismett, an efficient transplant centre of world renown in Palermo. And next to the biomedical research centre, an Ismett2 will be built, with a €250 million initial investment for the centre, another €348 million for the hospital. Superti-Furga commented: “We will be a unique biomedical hub in Europe, with a precise cultural vision: precision medicine, based on molecular pathological mechanisms and health as a combined effect of genes and environment, prevention as the preferred viaticum for the effectiveness of medicines, an almost philosophical and anthropological approach to biomedical research”.
This is a work in progress and hopes need to be fostered and not dashed.
But the intuition is right. And it can serve as a model for broader reflections and initiatives on the civil, economic and social growth of Sicily and the Mezzogiorno (southern Italy). Overcoming limits and crisis conditions.
The health sector in Sicily is not one of the brightest and most exemplary sides of the regional experience. “The best doctor here is an aeroplane” is a common cliché, confirmed by the fact that every year the Region spends around €140 million (half of it on “high complexity” operations) to reimburse the best and most efficient regional health administrations (first and foremost Emilia, Lombardy and Veneto) for the care they provide to Sicilian citizens. And while it is true that Sicily has high quality public and private health facilities, it is also true that public expenditure is among the highest in Italy, but the level of care is far from commensurate with both expenditure and national standards.
Yet it is precisely high performance in health and, more generally, quality of life that is a key factor in attracting both families and young talent seeking better working and living conditions. And to try to reduce the alarming brain drain (those 191,000 young people aged between 18 and 34 who left Italy in 2024, 20.5% more than the previous year) that impoverishes the country and jeopardises its future.
In the context of a new centrality of the Mediterranean, for reasons linked to the profound geopolitical upheavals currently underway, our Mezzogiorno can indeed regain a significant role as a centre of scientific research, training, industry and high-tech services, linked to the universities (the investments of Apple and Microsoft in Naples, Pirelli in Puglia and Bip, Business Integration Partners, in Palermo are proof of this). Not to mention the opportunities for long-stay tourism aimed at the silver generation, mainly older Europeans.
Here is the goal: a Sicily and a South capable of offering new job and study opportunities to young people returning or even arriving from all over the vast European and Mediterranean basin, but also from other countries that appreciate Made in Italy and its economic and cultural dimensions, as well as an original and pleasant lifestyle.
And the environment is in our favour. The Mediterranean and southern culture is open, communicative and inclusive, reinforcing the attractiveness we are talking about. Not forgetting, of course, Sicily’s history and culture of excellence in the visual arts, literature, cinema, theatre and photography, as well as a solid scientific culture (the Palermo Mathematical Circle and the Schools of Molecular and Marine Biology, Physics and Medicine are historical examples).
In short, a welcoming and dynamic Sicily. Seeking relations with other economic and cultural areas with a European dimension (this has been confirmed by the Milan-Palermo Forum, promoted in recent months by the two mayors Beppe Sala and Roberto Lagalla, and ready to deepen cooperation between companies, universities and cultural organisations).
So what is needed to make Sicily more attractive? Health and quality of life, as we said. A timely and effective focus on the protection and improvement of the environment and landscape. A range of high quality cultural (theatre, music, museums, libraries) and leisure facilities (beginning with sports facilities). A high-quality, international education system, from primary school to university, for the children of families who choose to come and work in Sicily. And efficient infrastructures for mobility, starting with an airport system rich in services and connections with the rest of Europe and the world, which will greatly improve the services offered by the airports of Palermo and Catania, thinking not only of tourism but also of professional, entrepreneurial and work activities.
In other words, we need a forward-looking vision of sustainable development. And a return to good governance. Sicily has shown itself capable of doing so, despite a history of shadows and entanglements between maladministration and organised crime. With the “the papers in order” government of Piersanti Mattarella, President of the region, in the late 1970s and the government, led by Rino Nicolosi in the second half of the 1980s, focused on attracting national and international investment. And there have been other experiences both in the region and in some cities and municipalities.
Experiences that should be studied and considered as good examples, updating them to contemporary contexts. Because Superti-Furga is right when he speaks of a “desire for redemption, for rebirth”. And all those who, in cultural and economic circles, do not give in to the idea of an “irredeemable” Sicily that was feared by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa and the “terrible insularity of the soul” noted with concern by Leonardo Sciascia. Two recent positive examples among many: “Marea” in Catania, an initiative promoted by Antonio Perdichizzi, an entrepreneur, to stimulate connections and interactions between Sicilians who have left and Sicilians who have stayed; and “Sud Innovation” by Roberto Ruggeri in Messina, to propose reports on new technologies useful for the development of the territory).
There is, in short, a recurring hope, a desire not to resign oneself to a stereotype of Sicily and a Mezzogiorno reduced to marginality.
“L’alba della Sicilia” (The dawn of Sicily) was the title of a collection of essays by a group of economists, lawyers and political scientists published by Sellerio (and edited by the author) in 1996, almost thirty years ago. A promising hypothesis, although it was noted that “in the Sicilian dialect the form of the future is absent, as if there were a historical inability or fear to express the time to come, to name evolution, to recognise the dignity of language for tomorrow”.
Today, thanks in part to investment in science, culture and good economics, it is still possible to believe that the journey to the end of the night will soon allow us to glimpse a new light.
(photo Getty Images)
Sicily as the “California of Europe”. And Palermo as an international centre of excellence for biotechnology and biomedical research, capable of “attracting young and experienced researchers from all over the world”. This is neither a Sicilian dream nor a propaganda battle about original development strategies for the South, fascinating to talk about but historically unproductive in terms of results. Rather, it is a real project in progress. There is even a Rimed Foundation to manage it, and a funded plan to build an international biotechnology research centre within two years in Carini, a village west of Palermo, near the Punta Raisi airport, named after Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino. Palermo high tech, Sicily, the land of science and quality work.
This was the headline in the influential pages of “Il Sole24Ore” (20th April), in an interview by Paolo Bricco with Giulio Superti-Furga, for twenty years director of the CeMM in Vienna, the research centre for molecular medicine of the Academy of Sciences, and now coordinator of the activities of the Sicilian Foundation: “Today there are three hundred researchers and six biotech companies in the Vienna cluster. Why can’t we do the same in Sicily? It is a complex but wonderful place, with a great desire for rebirth and redemption, capable of hosting a scientific facility of international standard and attracting scientists and researchers from all over the world”.
The Rimed Foundation has five founding partners: the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, the CNR, the Region of Sicily, the American University of Pittsburgh and the Pittsburgh Medical Center, the two healthcare institutions that for more than 25 years have created the Ismett, an efficient transplant centre of world renown in Palermo. And next to the biomedical research centre, an Ismett2 will be built, with a €250 million initial investment for the centre, another €348 million for the hospital. Superti-Furga commented: “We will be a unique biomedical hub in Europe, with a precise cultural vision: precision medicine, based on molecular pathological mechanisms and health as a combined effect of genes and environment, prevention as the preferred viaticum for the effectiveness of medicines, an almost philosophical and anthropological approach to biomedical research”.
This is a work in progress and hopes need to be fostered and not dashed.
But the intuition is right. And it can serve as a model for broader reflections and initiatives on the civil, economic and social growth of Sicily and the Mezzogiorno (southern Italy). Overcoming limits and crisis conditions.
The health sector in Sicily is not one of the brightest and most exemplary sides of the regional experience. “The best doctor here is an aeroplane” is a common cliché, confirmed by the fact that every year the Region spends around €140 million (half of it on “high complexity” operations) to reimburse the best and most efficient regional health administrations (first and foremost Emilia, Lombardy and Veneto) for the care they provide to Sicilian citizens. And while it is true that Sicily has high quality public and private health facilities, it is also true that public expenditure is among the highest in Italy, but the level of care is far from commensurate with both expenditure and national standards.
Yet it is precisely high performance in health and, more generally, quality of life that is a key factor in attracting both families and young talent seeking better working and living conditions. And to try to reduce the alarming brain drain (those 191,000 young people aged between 18 and 34 who left Italy in 2024, 20.5% more than the previous year) that impoverishes the country and jeopardises its future.
In the context of a new centrality of the Mediterranean, for reasons linked to the profound geopolitical upheavals currently underway, our Mezzogiorno can indeed regain a significant role as a centre of scientific research, training, industry and high-tech services, linked to the universities (the investments of Apple and Microsoft in Naples, Pirelli in Puglia and Bip, Business Integration Partners, in Palermo are proof of this). Not to mention the opportunities for long-stay tourism aimed at the silver generation, mainly older Europeans.
Here is the goal: a Sicily and a South capable of offering new job and study opportunities to young people returning or even arriving from all over the vast European and Mediterranean basin, but also from other countries that appreciate Made in Italy and its economic and cultural dimensions, as well as an original and pleasant lifestyle.
And the environment is in our favour. The Mediterranean and southern culture is open, communicative and inclusive, reinforcing the attractiveness we are talking about. Not forgetting, of course, Sicily’s history and culture of excellence in the visual arts, literature, cinema, theatre and photography, as well as a solid scientific culture (the Palermo Mathematical Circle and the Schools of Molecular and Marine Biology, Physics and Medicine are historical examples).
In short, a welcoming and dynamic Sicily. Seeking relations with other economic and cultural areas with a European dimension (this has been confirmed by the Milan-Palermo Forum, promoted in recent months by the two mayors Beppe Sala and Roberto Lagalla, and ready to deepen cooperation between companies, universities and cultural organisations).
So what is needed to make Sicily more attractive? Health and quality of life, as we said. A timely and effective focus on the protection and improvement of the environment and landscape. A range of high quality cultural (theatre, music, museums, libraries) and leisure facilities (beginning with sports facilities). A high-quality, international education system, from primary school to university, for the children of families who choose to come and work in Sicily. And efficient infrastructures for mobility, starting with an airport system rich in services and connections with the rest of Europe and the world, which will greatly improve the services offered by the airports of Palermo and Catania, thinking not only of tourism but also of professional, entrepreneurial and work activities.
In other words, we need a forward-looking vision of sustainable development. And a return to good governance. Sicily has shown itself capable of doing so, despite a history of shadows and entanglements between maladministration and organised crime. With the “the papers in order” government of Piersanti Mattarella, President of the region, in the late 1970s and the government, led by Rino Nicolosi in the second half of the 1980s, focused on attracting national and international investment. And there have been other experiences both in the region and in some cities and municipalities.
Experiences that should be studied and considered as good examples, updating them to contemporary contexts. Because Superti-Furga is right when he speaks of a “desire for redemption, for rebirth”. And all those who, in cultural and economic circles, do not give in to the idea of an “irredeemable” Sicily that was feared by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa and the “terrible insularity of the soul” noted with concern by Leonardo Sciascia. Two recent positive examples among many: “Marea” in Catania, an initiative promoted by Antonio Perdichizzi, an entrepreneur, to stimulate connections and interactions between Sicilians who have left and Sicilians who have stayed; and “Sud Innovation” by Roberto Ruggeri in Messina, to propose reports on new technologies useful for the development of the territory).
There is, in short, a recurring hope, a desire not to resign oneself to a stereotype of Sicily and a Mezzogiorno reduced to marginality.
“L’alba della Sicilia” (The dawn of Sicily) was the title of a collection of essays by a group of economists, lawyers and political scientists published by Sellerio (and edited by the author) in 1996, almost thirty years ago. A promising hypothesis, although it was noted that “in the Sicilian dialect the form of the future is absent, as if there were a historical inability or fear to express the time to come, to name evolution, to recognise the dignity of language for tomorrow”.
Today, thanks in part to investment in science, culture and good economics, it is still possible to believe that the journey to the end of the night will soon allow us to glimpse a new light.
(photo Getty Images)