About us

"ENEA is the National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development, a public body aimed at research, technological innovation and the provision of advanced services to enterprises, public administration and citizens in the sectors of energy, the environment and sustainable economic development (article 4, Law no. 22 of 28 December 2015)"

ENEA has highly qualified personnel, advanced laboratories, experimental facilities and excellent instruments for the realisation of projects, studies, tests, assessments, analyses and training services, with particular reference to product and process innovation and the valorisation of results to contribute to the development and competitiveness of the national economic system.

Since its foundationin the 1960s, its strengths have been applied research, technology transfer and technical-scientific support to companies, associations, territories, central and local administrations: for this reason - unlike other research institutions - the Agency depends on the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security.

Its focus sectors are energy technologies (renewable sources, energy storage, smart grids), for which the Agency is also the coordinator of the Energy National Technology Cluster, nuclear fusion and nuclear safety (the Agency is the reference national research coordinator), energy efficiency (with the National Agency for Energy Efficiency), technologies for cultural heritage, seismic protection, food safety, pollution, life sciences, strategic raw materials, climate change.

Among the emerging issues, ENEA supports the productive system as well as public authorities (Ministry of environment and Ministry of economic development in particular) in the transition towards the circular economy and the resource efficiency.

ENEA reinforces its efforts by collaborating with numerous national and international research bodies and institutions like Texas Tech University, Stanford Research Institute, New Delhi University, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, ICTP, TWAS, and participates in technological platforms and networks like EERA (European Energy Research Alliance), ECRA (European Climate Research Alliance), MEDENER, and Enterprise Europe Network, the largest network of services supporting competitiveness and innovation for SMEs.

An integral part of ENEA is the Agency for Energy Efficiency, established by the Italian legislative decree no. 115 of 30th May 2008, as transposition of directive 2006/32/EC on energy end-use efficiency and energy services and repealing Council Directive 93/76/EEC, which offers technical and scientific support to companies, supports the public administration in the preparation, implementation and control of national energy policies, and promotes training and information campaigns for the dissemination of energy efficiency culture.

ENEA's National Institute of Ionizing Radiation Metrology, pursuant to the Italian Law no. 273 dated 11th August 1991, ensures the conditions for the reliability of ionising radiation measurement in all sectors of interest at national level:

• Radiotherapy.
• Medical radiodiagnostics.
• Radiation protection in the fields of the environment, health, and scientific research.
• Procedures and tests for the homologation and calibration of measuring instruments.
• Participates in the technical and advisory commission of the Italian Presidency of theCcouncil of Ministers for nuclear safety and health protection.

Following specific provisions of the Ministerial Committee for Economic Programming (CIPE) of 1985 and 1986, which assigned ENEA the responsibility for and the task of intervention "in the sector of low- and medium-activity waste produced at national level, in order to guarantee the collection, safekeeping and management" in particular for "low- and medium-activity waste from industrial and health activities", in 1986 ENEA established the Integrated Service for the management of non-electronuclear radioactive waste produced at national level.

In 2007 the Italian legislative decree no. 52, transposing the Euratom Directive 2003/122/EC on the control of high-activity sealed radioactive sources and orphan sources, recognised the Integrated Service as a "technical and operational tool able to take charge of all the phases of the management cycle of the source no longer used". Due to the lack of a national disposal deposit, for about 30 years the aforementioned Service has been the only entity present in Italy that is able to carry out the management of this type of non-electronuclear radioactive waste in an integrated manner, from collection to storage.