A proposal for sorting a projects portfolio through the ELECTRE TRI method focused on the European strategy

In recent years, the partnerships between private companies and public organizations are becoming key elements for improving local development, territorial competitiveness, and delivering innovation. These collaborations are widely promoted by the European Framework Programme for Research and Innovation thanks to the provision of several instruments, such as Horizon 2020. In this context, competitiveness's improvement of the territory employing research and innovation actions is supported by the technological districts. In Sicily, the AgroBioPesca district has attempted a strategic action named "Call for ideas" in order to design its own roadmap for research and innovation in the agri-food sector. For this purpose, many proponents of public and/or private sectors presented several innovative project ideas referred to specific Technological Trajectories. This paper aims at providing an instrument able to select the most suitable project ideas in order to constitute the AgroBioPesca projects portfolio. To such an aim, the authors propose the application of the multiple criteria sorting method ELECTRE TRI considering criteria deduced by the Horizon 2020 guidelines and documents. The application of this methodology allows subdividing the project ideas received into project ideas to be rejected, reviewable, and eligible for funding. Moreover, to consider the uncertainty of the decision-makers' judgment, the authors propose a new version of the method in which the crisp judgment is converted into an interval. A sensitivity analysis has lastly been conducted to study the weaknesses of non-financiable projects.