ABSTRACT
In the 2000s a wave of changes affected the Italian public infrastructure market. It is widely accepted that these changes will continue in the next years due to public budget constraints that require alternative funding instruments to avoid blocking of public works with further negative consequences for growth and development. According to the Italian juridical framework people can distinguish three main types of Public Private Partnership (PPP) such as public works concessions; service concessions; and other PPP forms. In the third residual category, one can consider the institutional PPP, where public and private companies provide public services. The importance of research on PPPs is great as these projects influence our society and do so over a long time period. Nevertheless, in Italy research is fragmented and scarcely supported by government funding. Except for national observatories on PPP, such as the CRESME observatory or the Project Financing National observatory, universities and research centres researching on PPP themes, are scarce.
