An agreement signed between the Vicenza’s Chamber of Commerce and SSIP, that is, the Leather and Tanning Materials Experimental Station based in Pozzuoli: the key goal is to support the sector and its enterprises
A new structure at the service of the daily operational requirements of all the tanning companies located in the Vicenza area, able to support them and to back up their innovation-driven projects. This is the result of the agreement signed by Vicenza’s Chamber of Commerce and by SSIP, the Leather and Tanning Material Experimental Station – the former hosts and manages the latter’s facility in Vicenza province, via the Special Agency Made in Vicenza. SSIP, whose headquarters is based in Pozzuoli (Naples province), in the “Adriano Olivetti” district, is a prominent national research body, accounted among Italy’s oldest and most renowned, that, in the name of the development and growth of the tanning industry, aims at promoting the cooperation between business clusters, universities, ENEA (the National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development).
A teamwork that brings together all the parties involved. The Experimental Station has already gained a foothold in Veneto, given the presence of one of the world’s leading tanning districts, the one located in Arzignano. The laboratory is headquartered in Altavilla Vicentina, in the same facility that already hosts the Precious Metals Laboratory of Vicenza’s Chamber of Commerce, managed by Made in Vicenza as well. The new body will work in close synergy with the laboratories of the Science and Technology Park in Pozzuoli, thus giving to the local enterprises the chance to rely also on the latter’s methods and technologies for particularly sophisticated tests, including five first-level laboratories: advanced tests for research and services, physical tests for products’ performances, chemical tests for processes and sustainability, microscopy, surface measurement. At the same time, the new Altavilla-based laboratory will be connected to the Experimental Tannery that SSIP has been funding in the last couple of years, located in the Galileo Technical Institute in Arzignano – the latter at the forefront in providing support to local tanning enterprises, a strategic resource for the students of the “Leather Technologies” course.
In this way, the new laboratory will act as a booster for the latest research projects carried out by the R&D Departments of the Experimental Station, that will also benefit from the resources allocated by the PNRR, that is, the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, designed by Italian institutions to revive domestic economy after the pandemic. The new laboratory is set to markedly strengthen a network of service and facilities that, in 2021, has actively helped almost a hundred firms, the majority in the area of Vicenza, including tanneries, chemicals manufacturers and formulators, tanning machinery producers, leather users, consortium companies dealing with the depuration and enhancement of tanning waste.