by Davide Testa | Sep 30, 2025 | Projects
In Reggio Emilia, LabGov ETS and the Municipality of Reggio Emilia, Communication, Participation and Social Innovation Service, are launching a programme as part of the NOI – Nuovi Orientamenti d’Impresa (New Business Approaches) start-up incubation programme. Between September and December 2025, four meetings will be held with the aim of co-designing and incubating Partnerships for Sustainable Development and Innovation, in accordance with the Regulation on Urban and Climate Democracy and Justice in Reggio Emilia, lastly updated in 2024.
The four stages of the XYZ programme and the methodology adopted
The programme will consist of four meetings, led by experts from academia and public administration, following an iterative method that combines theoretical training and group work in each meeting.
The first module – R&I LAB, scheduled for 29 September – will focus on building a collaborative city, with the aim of immersing participants in the strategic vision of the Municipality of Reggio Emilia. Startups will be able to begin imagining opportunities for interaction, reflecting on their role in the urban collaboration system and the potential for generating shared value. The meeting will be led by Nicoletta Levi, Director of Communication, Participation and Social Innovation Service at the Municipality of Reggio Emilia, and Christian Iaione, Full Professor and Director of MSc Strategic Management, Innovation & Sustainability at LUISS Guido Carli.
The second module – X-Lab, scheduled for 13 October – delves into the regulatory and contractual aspects that enable collaboration. In particular, it will explore the tools that enable the transition from the bipartite logic of public-private partnerships to community integration, leading to the creation of multi-stakeholder partnerships with impact: Sustainable Development and Innovation Partnerships. The meeting will be led by Antonio Persico and Davide Testa, Research Fellows at LUISS Guido Carli.
The third module – Z-Lab, scheduled for 27 October – will focus on measuring the multiple dimensions of impact that each partnership should be able to produce. Innovators will therefore learn how to define effective indicators and establish participatory reporting models, starting with the Community Budget provided for by the Reggio Emilia Regulation. The meeting will be led by Costanza Consolandi, Full Professor at the University of Siena and LUISS Guido Carli, and Rubina Michela Galeotti, Research Fellow at LUISS Guido Carli.
The fourth and final meeting – GRINN-Lab – will consist of an in-person mentoring session led by Azzurra Spirito, Advisor and Transformative Innovation Designer, which will allow innovators to refine their respective projects, integrate the elements learned in previous training sessions and ensure the consistency and governability of the partnership.
This will be followed by a final event organised by the Municipality: the bootcamp, dedicated to the presentation of the projects developed, which will give start-ups the opportunity to discuss and receive feedback from representatives of the Municipality and mentors, offering them the chance to give voice to their projects and fine-tune the partnership proposals developed.
The start-ups involved
Five start-ups have joined the incubation programme: Djinne, Girotondo, Loop, Supervisor, and Welfin. All the start-ups involved have joined XYZ Camp because they are convinced not only that they want to be on the market, but also that they want to seek collaboration with the public administration, citizens and other local stakeholders, as they are convinced that they can produce a significant impact on their community.
The programme promises to be interesting thanks to the variety of proposals and areas of interest covered by the start-ups. These range from developing an app to promote sustainable and widespread tourism in the city, to creating a hub that brings together regeneration and innovation; from recycling stage materials for artistic and social purposes, to setting up AI for mental health services or employee loans that enable the creation of alternative welfare in the neighborhoods.
All these organisations have joined the XYZ Camp with the aim of challenging themselves to build a strategy for fruitful interaction with the public administration, in the belief that their business objectives can coincide with public policies that directly impact citizens.
The ambitions
The ambition of this mentoring programme, which is part of a broader start-up incubation programme with a strong social focus, organised by a number of public, academic and professional entities mostly based in Reggio Emilia or in the Emilia-Romagna Region, is therefore to explore the vision and tools needed to develop a Business-to-City or, even better, Business-to-Neighbourhood entrepreneurial strategy.
Below, the poster with the complete programme can be viewed.
XYZ Camp Reggio Emilia – Poster
by Valeria Lembo | Oct 29, 2024 | CO-Roma Project, Event, News
So many people stopped by our stand to learn about our project on impact measurement at Maker Faire Rome- The European Edition 2024!
We’re proud to have participated as part of the CTE Roma – Casa delle Tecnologie Emergenti project and congratulations to all the Strong Innovators who won our Luiss Guido Carli University-branded gadgets!
by Valeria Lembo | Oct 20, 2024 | CO-Roma Project, Event, News
We look forward to seeing you from tomorrow, October 25th, to Sunday, October 27th at the Maker Faire Rome- The European Edition at the Gazometro Ostiense!
We will attend to present our pilot project on impact measurement, developed by Luiss Guido Carli University and LabGov ETS as part of the CTE Roma – Casa delle Tecnologie Emergenti – Roma Open Lab project.
The project consists of a platform for measuring impacts across 9 key dimensions.
During the three days, we will present visitors with a questionnaire that represents a simplified version of our work, aimed at certifying the impact of innovators engaged in achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
If you are a sustainable innovator, come and discover your impact level, which can be weak, moderate, or strong and measure the impact of your innovation!
We look forward to seeing you at the MakerFaire, from tomorrow to Sunday, at the Gazometro!
See you there!
by Valeria Lembo | Oct 2, 2024 | Euarenas-Reggio Emilia, Event, News
Today, the Luiss Guido Carli University researchers and PhD students from the LabGov team participated in the final event of the EUARENAS project: “Cities as Drivers of Deliberative and Participatory Democracy in Europe,” held at the House of the European Commission in Berlin.
This highly significant project brought together the results of nearly four years of research (and action), focusing on participatory and deliberative practices in European urban contexts.
During the conference, the outcomes of this work were presented, highlighting a shared goal: to promote active citizenship, strengthen social programs, and stimulate political life through citizen engagement and democratic innovations in European cities.
by Valeria Lembo | May 23, 2024 | City Science Initiative, Commons Press, Euarenas-Reggio Emilia
The Regulation on Democracy and Urban and Climate Justice in Reggio Emilia unifies in a single text the values and methods to ensure participation and collaboration among urban innovators from different categories, according to the quintuple helix paradigm in the definition and management of public policies. This new regulation collects and updates all previous regulations on civic participation.
In September 2022, the City Council approved the establishment of the Consultas, bodies formed by elected citizens to represent their territories and collaborate with the Municipality in policy planning. Through the Area Agreements, citizens can define their needs and propose them to the Municipality for integration into public policies.
Additionally, the regulation introduces the new Title V, which concerns the collaboration of communities and territories in the co-design phase of interventions, updating the previous regulations in line with the new Public Contracts Code and other national and European laws.
The “Partnerships for Sustainable Development and Innovation,” an evolution of the “Citizenship Agreements,” are defined as multi-actor collaborations for various fields such as climate, cultural heritage, urban regeneration, and energy communities. These Partnerships for Sustainable Development and Innovation involve distributed responsibility and collaboration based on trust.
An important innovation is the Community Budget, a tool to measure the impacts produced by the Partnerships for Sustainable Development and Innovation in terms of costs, actions, resources, and especially generated changes.
The Regulation also enhances the relationship between public administration and knowledge institutions, which has been strengthening on other fronts as well, and has consolidated since 2022 with the establishment of the City Science Office (CSO), an office for applied research to public administration where researchers work side by side with councilors, managers, and officials to design innovative policies and facilitate collaboration with social, economic, civic, and scientific actors from Reggio Emilia, Italy.
The Regulation was developed in collaboration between the Municipality of Reggio Emilia, the Department of Law of Luiss Guido Carli University, LabGov ETS – Laboratory for the governance of commons, the City Science Office of Reggio Emilia, also within the framework of the European Horizon 2020 project EUARENAS.EU-Cities as Arenas of Political Innovation in the Strengthening of Deliberative and Participatory Democracy.
The text was also developed with the scientific contribution of professors and experts in administrative law and public policies on social and public innovation, particularly through two study and in-depth seminars held:
– on February 22, 2023, at LUISS Guido Carli, Rome: “Neighborhood, Common Good: democracy and urban and climate justice in Reggio Emilia. An integrated public policy to achieve urban co-governance for sustainable urban development” with the intervention of Giancarlo Montedoro, President of the Section of the Council of State.
– on December 15, 2023, at Chiostri di San Pietro, Reggio Emilia: “The tools of Urban and Climate Justice in Reggio Emilia: the City Science Office, the community budget as an ESG measurement tool, Community and Area Agreements, the Climate Contract, and the Partnerships for Sustainable Development and Innovation.
https://www.comune.re.it/amministrazione/documenti-e-dati/atti-normativi/regolamenti/regolamento-sulla-democrazia-e-la-giustizia-urbana-e-climatica-reggio-emilia
https://www.comune.re.it/novita/notizie/approvati-in-consiglio-comunale-gli-aggiornamenti-e-le-modifiche-al-regolamento-sulla-democrazia-e-la-giustizia-urbana-e-climatica-a-reggio-emilia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsP3rNLn6yg
https://www.digital4democracy.com/seduteonline/reggioemilia/play.php?flv=RE_106489_126634_001_20240318
by Valeria Lembo | Mar 25, 2024 | Euarenas-Reggio Emilia, Event, News
On Friday, March 22nd, at the Open Lab in the Cloisters of San Pietro in Reggio Emilia, a discussion was held with the City Science Office research team, coordinated by Francesco Berni, on how scientific research can become a tool for innovation in service of the city.
We discussed this alongside Lanfranco de Franco, Councilor for Housing and Participation of the Municipality of Reggio Emilia; Giovanna Galli, Director of the Department of Communication and Economics at Unimore; Professor Christian Iaione from Luiss Guido Carli University.
The meeting was part of the INSIEME:FARE program: four days dedicated to discovering participation in Reggio Emilia and engaging with experts on the themes of collaboration and research for urban social innovation through the Common Good Neighborhood project and participatory initiatives promoted by the Municipality of Reggio Emilia.
