About The Commons Media Lab
The Commons Media Lab (CML) is LabGov’s platform for debate on the complex challenges that communities around the world are facing today. The CML brings together policy-makers, researchers, citizens and experts to reflect on a variety of themes relating to commons-based practices, exploring case studies, innovative urban policies, partnerships aimed at producing positive impacts on the community.
Discover the U20
Innovation on the Margins: How Afro-Mediterranean Communities Are Redefining Climate Resilience
Afro-Mediterranean communities are creating strong futures by using traditional knowledge and community support. They turn environmental challenges into opportunities through local farming, efficient water use, and sustainable building designs. These groups in North Africa and Southern Europe are reshaping climate resilience and promoting inclusive ways to adapt to climate change.
An intergenerational event to tackle Just Sustainable Innovation from a multiplicity of perspectives
VIDEO On June 26, 2025, on the beautiful premises of Villa Blanc, Luiss University, we hosted the XYZ CAMP 2025 (https://landing.luiss.it/xyzcamp/), an intergenerational event to discuss research, governance and policy approaches to address the complex topic of Just...
AWARE – Stakeholder Engagement & Students Bootcamp 2025: The Puglia System for Just Sustainable Innovation
On May 14, 2025, we convened the event “Bootcamp 2025: The Puglia System for Just Sustainable Innovation”. The event...
The Reaction of Local Authorities to the Proliferation of Short-Term Rentals: Regulatory Perspectives and Legal Disputes in Italy
The ongoing digitalization of economic and social relations - most visibly manifested in the rise of digital platforms - has deeply affected urban centers, despite lacking a territorial anchor. These new dynamics pose significant challenges for cities, as they...
When the Sea Rises: A Climate Movement Led by the Pacific’s Young Voices
In a world increasingly shaped by climate catastrophe, voices from the most vulnerable regions are rising, not in desperation, but with determination and power. One of the most powerful examples comes from the Pacific Islands, where young climate leaders are reframing...
From Rising Seas to Legal Gaps – From a fragmented to a mosaic approach on climate refugeeism
Stella Scocco Over the last fifty years, international law has adapted to meet the demands of new transnational challenges in our interconnected and globalized world. Among these challenges, the rise of environmental law has gained particular prominence, especially in...
Sharing knowledge to share energy: the experience of a Renewable Energy Community
Collective consumption in Italy In the past, the energy transition was almost only addressed by governments, who invested money to overcome the high cost of renewable energy. In recent years, following a strong reduction of cost associated with the clean energy...
AI Labelling Workforce in Africa: A Strategic Opportunity for the Continent’s Development
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a major driving force in the global economy. Its exponential growth is impressive: its market value, estimated at over $184 billion in 2024, is expected to reach $826.7 billion by 2030. If you have used a mobile app to learn a...
Recovery and Resilience Fund and sustainable innovation: beyond public-private partnership
By enacting Regulation 2021/241/EU, the European Union rolled a novel method of government (Lupo, 2023) out to achieve shared progress on pivotal and long-term objectives, some of which had already been enshrined in the EU Treaties (e.g. green transition, social and...
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Urban Journalism Institute
The Urban Journalism Institute
The Urban Journalism Institute is a platform incubated by LabGov.City to promote urban journalism as a tool to put forms of sustainable and inclusive development at the center of the current conversation on cities and their governance. The Institute aggregates journalists, communicators, experts and policymakers to share knowledge about, and debate on urban topics, as well as assist regional, national and local governments, NGOs, and foundations in the communication of urban strategies and projects on the field.
The Urban Journalism Institute is co-directed by Simone d’Antonio and Alessandra Pirera in partnership with UN-Habitat and other LabGov.City partners such as Luiss University and Georgetown University.
What we do?
• Trainings for journalists, communicators s and press officers
• High-level dialogues with editors
• Management of urban communications
• Media monitoring and networking
• Urban reportages and portfolios
• Media tours
#UrbanJournalism
Urbanjournalisminstitute@gmail.com
Changing the conversation about cities
Cities are the places where most of the challenges of our time are converging. Innovative solutions and experiences of urban governance and economy shared and discussed in a multilevel dimension can be influential in changing the approach to cities in national and local contexts worldwide.
Media have a decisive role in promoting urban debates at all levels. While they cover urgent contemporary trends, sharing news about economic crisis, refugees and migrants’ emergencies, women struggles, or natural disasters, they are talking about how cities are planned, managed and lived.
Exploring new communications tools to develop meaningful urban storytelling will contribute to spread new narratives about cities able to foster active participation of citizens and to push innovative social, economic and environmental urban policies. In this sense, cities are becoming the testing ground also to stimulate a more civic and substantive engagement of media in sustainable development processes at local and global level.