The Premio Impresa e Cultura has reached its tenth year: opening of the 10th edition.

Venice, November 29th 2006 – The 10th edition of the Premio Impresa e Cultura has been presented today at Palazzo Cavalli Franchetti, headquarters of the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere e Arti.

The Award is a nation-wide competition created by Bondardo Comunicazione in 1997, to focus attention on the most advanced and far-sighted companies: large and small companies that have leveraged culture as a strategic competitive asset.

The Award is supported by the Veneto Region, Confindustria, ICE- Italian Foreign Trade Institute, and is organised under the auspices of the Prime Minister’s Office, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure and the Ministry of Culture. It is organised in association with De Agostini Periodici, Enel, Gioco del Lotto – Lottomatica, Hay Group, Il Giornale dell’Arte, Il Sole 24 Ore, Intesa Sanpaolo, Microsoft Italia, RCS Periodici, Touring Club Italiano.

After Naples, Florence, Palermo and Milan, by invitation of the Veneto Region, the Premio Impresa e Cultura returns to Venice to celebrate its 10th anniversary. The Award ceremony will be held in May. The mission of the Sistema Impresa e Cultura includes the promotion of nation-wide initiatives (seminars, workshops, focus groups) for local businesses and cultural institutions, to explain and encourage investment in culture as a competitive lever for the business community and local entrepreneurs. To this end, the Sistema Impresa e Cultura will promote a number of events in collaboration with the Veneto Region.

The Call for Application of the Premio Impresa e Cultura and the registration forms may be downloaded from the website: www.impresacultura.com or requested directly to Bondardo Comunicazione (Tel. 0039 02 29005700).
Participation is free of charge. The deadline for application is February 28th, 2007.

The First Prize shall be awarded to the project that best complied with the competition’s requirements of continuity, effectiveness, consistency of investment and active company role.

There are eight additional prize categories:
The Veneto Region Award for the project with the best mix of creativity, innovation and business culture
The Intesa Sanpaolo Award for the company with the best track-record of cultural investments
The Enel Award for the project with the highest social/local value
The Hay Group Award for leadership value in the promotion of business culture
The ICE Award for the company that has best succeeded in promoting Italian spirit and creativity abroad
The Il Sole 24 ORE Award for the most brilliant technical sponsorship project
RCS Periodici Award for the most effectively communicated project
The European Commission Italian Representation Award for the European company that invested in culture in Italy.

Two special categories, not in competition, have been introduced to encourage cultural institutions to establish and maintain a profitable dialogue with the Italian business community: the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Award for the Italian Cultural Institute world-wide that has demonstrated best interaction skills with the business community, and the Il Giornale dell’Arte Award, a recognition for the Italian cultural institution (museum, theatre, library, foundation) that has been able to establish valuable and long-lasting relations with the business community.

All winners will be awarded a work of art, created by an internationally renowned artist for the occasion. Furthermore, the winner of the First Prize will become a member of the Jury of the Arts & Business Award to be held in London next Autumn.

The new call for applications was presented during the meeting organised to analyse the past ten years of experience in the business-culture relationship, looking at the different development stages and the most effective solutions, and involving all the players in the debate. In fact, with over 800 companies taking part in the competition over the past nine years, the Premio Impresa e Cultura is the only Italian initiative of this kind that has stood the test of time and can outline long-term trends in this area.

Speakers included Giancarlo Galan, President of the Veneto Region, Jeffrey T. Schnapp, Founder and Director of Stanford Humanities LAB, Stanford University (California), Michela Bondardo, Vice President of Sistema Impresa e Cultura and the winners of the Award’s past editions: Adolfo Guzzini, President of iGuzzini (1998), Gualtiero Masini, President of Gruppo Teseco (2000), Alessandro Benedetti, Fondazione Ospedale Pediatrico Anna Meyer (2002), Enrico Loccioni, President of Gruppo Loccioni (2003), Anna Zegna, Ermenegildo Zegna Group (2004), Angelos Papadimitriou, President of GlaxoSmithKline (2005).

The second part of the day was dedicated to the local scenario, with a round-table that brought together entrepreneurs, artists, institutions and partners of the Sistema Impresa e Cultura. Speakers included Fabio Gava, Councillor for Economic Affairs, Development, Research and Innovation and Institutional Policies, Veneto Region, and Andrea Riello, President of the Veneto Industrialists Federation. The meeting was intended as a brainstorming session to identify ideas and investment opportunities in culture that can be turned into a competitive advantage for companies.

What is culture to the business community today? “Nowadays art and culture are essential ingredients for both industrial and post-industrial research and innovation” answered Jeffrey T. Schnapp, who compared the Italian experience to the Silicon Valley model. “The gap that once separated consumers from producers, culture and industry, academic halls from labs and factories, has lost its edge. In the so-called knowledge-economy, the culture of industrial innovation may only be achieved in a scenario in which an innovative culture gives a wider sense to research, one embracing technique and human complexity, utility and culture, expression, playfulness and imagination.”

“To stand out in global competition is today’s goal for Italian companies” said Michela Bondardo, VP of the Sistema Impresa e Cultura. “There is a silent but radical change in the more avant-garde companies regarding investment in culture. It has turned from a “magnificent luxury” for enlightened entrepreneurs into a strategic company asset; from a mere return-on-image tool to a veritable competitive resource able to build a strong and recognisable identity, to enhancing relations both within and without the company, to creating benefits for the local environment and the community. It is a “cultural leap” of proven results in countries such as the Netherlands, Denmark, Finland and the UK, countries which are very close to us in terms of geography, but far ahead in their ability to innovate and in their strategic approach.”

Together with the Observatory and the Forums, the Award is one of three main pillars of Sistema Impresa e Cultura, a non-profit association created to promote and enhance investment in culture as a competitive lever for Italy.
Sistema Impresa e Cultura can rely on a network of international partners, including Arts & Business CEREC, and on the experience of Bondardo Comunicazione, which has been working to establish a two-way communication between business and culture since 1987.

For further information please contact:
Bondardo Comunicazione, Milan - tel. 0039 02 2900 5700

Paola Manfredi / e-mail:p.manfredi@bondardo.com