The activity of the Centre is aimed in particular at the deepening on the one hand of supranational and domestic policies for the development of competitiveness, through research, innovation and creation of start-ups, and for the promotion of strategic value chains and the related support measures, and, on the other hand, of the new forms of digital legal regulation put in place by the European Union and the Member States, in order to provide a regulatory framework capable of making the activity of SMEs more efficient, offering the latter new opportunities for the realization of their entrepreneurial projects.
In this context, the most recent interventions by EU institutions on the subject assume primary importance, such as, inter alia, the Proposal for a Regulation on a Single Market for Digital Services (known as the "Digital Services Act"), intended to strengthen the Digital Single Market and to promote innovation and competitiveness within the same.
In this regard, the Centre for High Studies analyzes, also in a comparative perspective, how the Member States are preparing for the implementation of the regulatory bodies that will emerge, proposing and/or identifying the best practices to follow.
In addition, given the downward trend in the traditional credit market for SMEs, a particular focus is dedicated to the development and implementation of corporate finance policies, intended to create and regulate new tools aimed at facilitating access to credit.
In this regard, the guidelines adopted from time to time by Consob regarding the taxonomic choices to be made in relation to crypto-assets, which are strictly interconnected with those of a regulatory nature of the market where the latter are issued and negotiated, are the subject of in-depth studies.
In this regard, particular attention is paid to the processes for defining the regulation policies of Initial Coin Offerings ("ICOs") and Security Token Offerings ("STOs"), for which it shall be assessed the opportunity or not to provide for subsidized regimes, or "Sandbox", ad hoc, also in terms of management of digital exchange platforms, more or less flexible than the ordinary discipline dictated by the Italian Testo Unico della Finanza, which enhance the peculiarities of new financial products, without losing a set of basic safeguards for the investors.
Some members of the Centre of High Studies are also members of the Consumers & SMEs in the Digital Single Market (Digi-ConSME) - Jean Monnet Center of Excellence, participating in the activities, research and events organized by the same.