Annual Report 2025: an ecosystem that grows, connects, and looks ahead

2025 was a year of consolidation and strategic positioning for Clust-ER Health. In a context marked by rapid and complex transformations, the Cluster strengthened its role as the region’s reference platform for health innovation, working to make the ecosystem more connected, more understandable, and more capable of generating value over time.

Clust-ER Health’s activities focused on strengthening relationships between companies, research, the healthcare system, and institutions—facilitating dialogue among different areas of expertise and creating favorable conditions to access opportunities, resources, and partnerships at regional, national, and international level. This was often a “stitching together” effort, but a decisive one, increasing the territory’s ability to present itself in a cohesive and credible way in collaboration and project-development contexts.

“In 2025, Clust-ER Health consolidated a growth path that strengthened its role as the region’s reference platform for health innovation, with an increasingly active projection also at national and international level.
We worked to increase the regional system’s ability to network, enhance complementary skills, and build a solid positioning—capable of generating effects not only in the short term, but also in the medium to long term,” underlines Paolo Bonaretti, President of Clust-ER Health.

Over the course of the year, the Cluster acted as a facilitator between emerging needs and solutions, supporting European project design, territorial innovation, skills development, and dialogue with regional policy making. On the EU-project front, in 2025 ten project proposals were submitted, involving twenty members (including some participating for the first time), across six types of calls and four funding frameworks, for a total budget exceeding €55 million.

At the same time, work to support innovative entrepreneurship as a lever for ecosystem growth was strengthened: in 2025 the Cluster launched one acceleration program, engaged twenty-one regional startups, and promoted eight dedicated events—including matchmaking, pitching, and visibility opportunities in national and international contexts.

“The positioning built over time generates relational and strategic capital that enables more solid and continuous development trajectories. Looking at long-term impacts, the goal is to consolidate an ecosystem capable of innovating more effectively and responsibly, improving the territory’s competitiveness and its attractiveness to talent and investment,” Bonaretti adds.

The 2025 Annual Report offers a summary of this journey: not just a list of activities, but a snapshot of an evolving ecosystem, where projects, collaborations, and results contribute to building a shared vision. A vision aimed at a more resilient, open, and collaborative health system, capable of transforming research and ideas into concrete, lasting solutions for the territory.