Italy Archives - TRANSFORM

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The ideas and recommendations gathered during the event contributed to the definition of Regione Lombardia’s strategic plan.

After the survey conducted in April 2021, the citizen engagement activities carried out within the TRANSFORM project continued with the organisation and testing of an online deliberative workshop. The event took place on the Zoom platform on 29 May and involved 18 Lombardy residents. This methodology, which has been widely applied in various countries and on various issues, consists of a meeting in which a small group of people is asked to express their opinions in an extensive manner on a specific topic. The deliberative workshop follows a structured dialogue format and begins with an information and learning phase.

For an in-depth look at participatory methodologies and their application in Europe, click here to download the OECD report “Innovative Citizen Participation and New Democratic Institutions: Catching the Deliberative Wave”.

Just ENERGY TRANSITION for all

The theme of the TRANSFORM workshop, the Just Energy Transition for All, was selected by the project partners based on the citizens’ interests and needs that emerged from the survey – the first step of the participatory process – and allowed the topic of sustainability to be explored in all its dimensions, including the social one. With the support of an agency specialised in this type of activity, the citizens that were called to participate in the workshop were selected in a balanced way considering gender, age group and province of residence. The discussion, which was moderated by professional facilitators, was structured and divided into plenary sessions (with the full group of 18 participants) and moments of dialogue in smaller subgroups (each with 6 participants).

The workshop opened with an informative phase, during which the theme of energy transition was introduced via a video interview with Nicola Armaroli, who is the Research Director of the Italian National Research Council in Bologna, one of the most-cited Italian experts in the international literature on this topic. Afterwards, Luca Donelli, President of the Lombardy Energy Cleantech Cluster (LE2C), spoke in an online session, illustrating through a presentation the technological solutions and lines of research that can be introduced to facilitate the energy transition, focusing in particular on the initiatives and strategy in place at regional level. The expert then remained at the participants’ disposal to answer their questions and interests (e.g. on the future prospects of hydrogen).

In the discussion concerning the actions to be taken to start the energy transition in Lombardy, the citizens identified 10 macro-areas, of which 3 were designated as priorities:

education, training and job innovation;
better services and green incentives for housing (public and private);
and digitalisation of PA.

For each selected macro-area, they then analysed issues and opportunities related to “social justice”: the need to retrain workers engaged in non-renewable energy chains, as well as opportunities for new green jobs; difficulties in providing information and accessing existing incentives, and; problems related to the digital divide and especially the digital literacy of the older population.

Finally, participants produced a set of recommendations in the three priority areas discussed, aiming to facilitate the training or retraining of professionals, to address and solve the complexity of the mechanisms related to the use of incentives in order to render them more accessible and to support the needs of the older population in using digital services.

The event was a success. The considerations and ideas that emerged during the participatory event provided Lombardy Region and Finlombarda with useful elements for writing the 2021-2023 Strategic Programme for research, innovation and technological transfer (STP), which was approved on 19 October.

Moreover, in the evaluation questionnaires filled out following the close of the event, the participants expressed great satisfaction, both for the format of the deliberative workshop and “the innovative opportunity that the Lombardy Region has given citizens to express their opinion on an important issue such as sustainability and ecological transition”, confirming the positive effects of this type of initiative on the relationship between citizens and public institutions.

Click here to download the workshop report.

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Citizens’ needs, which emerged from the survey proposed by the European project, have been integrated into the 2021-2023 Three-year Strategic Programme for Research, Innovation and Technology Transfer guiding research and innovation

This past 19 October, the Regional Council approved the new “The 2021-2023 Three-year Strategic Programme for Research, Innovation and Technology Transfer, the governance tool that guides the development of Lombardy in the field of research and innovation. The Programme “traces the lines of development of research and innovation to respond to the global challenges of our time, through a distinctive approach that puts people and their needs at the centre of all choices,” as explained by Lombardy governor Attilio Fontana.

In order to investigate the needs of the population in the field of research and innovation by directly involving citizens, in 2021 the TRANSFORM project designed and conducted a dialogue process structured in two phases: a survey, which will be discussed in the following paragraphs, and a deliberative workshop, information on which can be found at this link.

The first phase of the process – the survey – took place at the end of April and involved a sample of one thousand Lombardy residents, selected so as to have a group of participants representative of the Lombardy population in terms of age, gender and province of residence. The responses, collected with the support of an agency specialising in this type of survey, were then analysed by the Giannino Bassetti Foundation and integrated by Lombardy Region – with the support of Finlombarda – into the new Programme.

FINDINGS OF THE SURVEY

The results of the survey highlighted

‘quality education for more children and young people’,
‘decent work for more people’,
and ‘less pollution impact of cities’

as the most urgent objectives for the area (indicated by 66%, 65% and 62% of the sample, respectively). According to the interviewees, two of these same ambits – education and work – have been among the most affected by the health emergency: “quality education”, “improving health and well-being”, and “decent work” are in fact the objectives that have become even more important in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, with the greatest impact recorded especially in larger families.

Young people aged 18-24 showed greater sensitivity to issues related to environmental sustainability, including ‘more responsible consumption and production’, ‘mobility infrastructure’, ‘more people using clean and safe water for consumption and personal care’, and ‘more action to protect biodiversity’.

Among the most important personal and family needs, respondents indicated needs related to health, work and safety (“preventing illness” 87%, “living in safe environments and contexts” 85%, “having user-friendly citizen services” 83%, “moving on safe roads” 83%). Two-thirds of the participants indicated research and innovation as tools capable of providing answers to these needs, especially in the medical field, while another 24% considered that scientific and technological development could play a partial role.

Who to involve in the design of research and innovation policies of Regione Lombardia? According to survey participants, universities/research centres and the government are at the top of the list, as are citizens (37%) and public bodies, specifically municipalities (35%). Businesses and the European Union, important players in the regional research and innovation system, are in fifth place (28%).

The issues related to environmental sustainability, which emerged as priorities based on the responses, were further investigated at a later date during a deliberative workshop. The pilot event, entitled “Just Energy Transition for All”, took place on 29 May 2021 and involved 18 citizens living in Lombardy.

Click here to download the survey report.

On 25 October TRANSFORM and OECD held a launch event of the Italian translation of the OECD report “Innovative Citizen Participation and New Democratic Institutions: Catching the Deliberative Wave – Highlights 2020”. The event targeted Italian stakeholders and invited speakers from OECD, Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, the Italian Ministry for Sustainable development and Mobility, Lombardy and Emilia Romagna regions to discuss deliberative democracy in the Italian context. The event was introduced and moderated by Angela Simone, TRANSFORM Project Coordinator. The recording, in Italian with English subtitles, is now available on our YouTube channel.

Innovazione nella partecipazione dei cittadini al decision making pubblico e nuove istituzioni democratiche. Cavalcare l’onda della deliberazione.

Si è tenuta con successo il 25 ottobre 2021 la presentazione organizzata nell’ambito del progetto TRANSFORM “Innovazione nella partecipazione dei cittadini al decision making pubblico e nuove istituzioni democratiche”, finalizzata al lancio della traduzione in italiano del rapporto OCSE “Innovative Citizen Participation and New Democratic Institutions – Catching the Deliberative Wave – Highlights 2020”. Pubblicato nel giugno 2020 e fondato su un lavoro di ricerca e analisi condotto su scala globale dall’Unità Open Government dell’OCSE, il report restituisce una panoramica sui principi e sulle pratiche che favoriscono la partecipazione dei cittadini al decision making pubblico (qui la versione in Italiano e qui la versione in inglese).

L’idea di una versione italiana del report OCSE nasce nella cornice del progetto TRANSFORM, con l’ambizione da un lato di contribuire alla diffusione dell’onda deliberativa in Italia e dall’altro di fornire ai policy maker, e a tutti gli attori interessati, uno strumento utile e di facile utilizzo per la sperimentazione di pratiche partecipative volte a coinvolgere i cittadini nelle decisioni pubbliche.

Pandemia, cambiamenti climatici, transizione energetica e digitale ci insegnano che le risposte che possiamo dare collettivamente alle sfide complesse del nostro tempo passano in maniera sempre più preponderante da una riflessione sul governo responsabile di sapere e tecnologia. Le riflessioni e le esperienze sul governo responsabile di ricerca e innovazione maturate nell’ambito dell’RRI rappresentano una ricchezza e un terreno di crescita fondamentale per lo sviluppo di nuove forme di governance che siano in grado di rispondere in modo il più possibile efficace e articolato ai Grand societal challanges, a partire dall’elaborazione di nuovi meccanismi democratici e dall’introduzione di processi di citizen engagement nelle decisioni pubbliche che i policy-maker sono chiamati a prendere.

Come scriviamo nella prefazione alla versione italiana del report, in Europa l’attenzione delle istituzioni verso il coinvolgimento dei cittadini nelle decisioni che riguardano il futuro dell’Unione è più che mai alta. Ne sono esempi concreti la Conferenza sul Futuro dell’Europa e le Missioni del Programma Quadro Europeo per la Ricerca e l’Innovazione (2021-2027) Horizon Europe e il Competence Centre on Participatory and Deliberative Democracy (Joint Research Centre, Ispra – Commissione Europea). In Italia non sono ancora molte le iniziative che promuovono la conoscenza e l’utilizzo delle metodologie partecipative e i casi di esperienze istituzionalizzate che le mettono in pratica sono ancora più rari.

Proprio di benefici, sfide, metodologie ed esperienze di deliberazione pubblica si è discusso nella giornata di lancio della versione italiana del report OCSE, moderata da Angela Simone (Fondazione Giannino Bassetti), che ha visto gli interventi di Alessandro Bellantoni (Head of the Open Government and Civic Space Unit dell’OCSE), Ângela Guimarães Pereira (Joint Research Centre, Ispra – Commissione Europea), Caterina Cittadino (Commissione Nazionale per il Dibattito Pubblico – Ministero delle infrastrutture e della mobilità sostenibili), Enza Cristofaro (Direzione Generale Istruzione, Università, Ricerca, Innovazione e Semplificazione – Regione Lombardia), e Daniela Ferrara (Direzione Generale Economia della Conoscenza, del Lavoro e dell’Impresa – Regione Emilia-Romagna).

Per saperne di più, guarda il video integrale dell’evento e leggi il report in italiano “Innovazione nella partecipazione dei cittadini al decision making pubblico e nuove istituzioni democratiche. Cavalcare l’onda della deliberazione”.

Older Posts

“Just energy transition for all”, the TRANSFORM project’s deliberative workshop

Just ENERGY TRANSITION for all

The results of TRANSFORM’s participatory process become part of the strategic policies of the Lombardy region

FINDINGS OF THE SURVEY

Rapporto OCSE sull’onda deliberativa: il video del lancio della traduzione in italiano