Non-financial PPP for participatory priority-setting in R&I policy: the case of the Italian National Technology Cluster policy

National governments are increasingly being scrutinized for how they develop priorities and specialize decisions regarding public investments in research and innovation (R&I). Pressure stems from the need to ensure that publicly funded science and technology projects have a positive impact and increases in times of fiscal tightening and from specific policies such as the European Smart Specialization Strategy. One of the most important trade-offs governments face in the generation of specialized investments’ trajectories is overcoming information asymmetries by aggregating relevant knowledge while mediating the conflicting interests of various actors. We build on the literature on public-private partnerships (PPPs) developed for R&I by analyzing how a stable and effective priority-setting (PS) process can be implemented. We argue that a particular type of PPP, a "non-financial PPP", when characterized by participatory governance, represents an effective and legitimized structure that can transform broad goals for specific fields into prioritized technological trajectories. We then analyze the case of the Italian National Technological Clusters, which were instituted by a policy launched in 2012 by the Italian government aimed at providing a governance tool for producing legitimate and informed priorities. This analysis increases the current knowledge of the unique role that specific PPPs may have as a governance tool for R&I policy.