by Giulia Spinaci | May 22, 2014 | The Urban Media Lab
On May 19th 2014, LabGov – Laboratory for the Governance of the commons organized the event “Coltiviamoci” at LUISS Guido Carli University in Rome. In organizing such a meeting, LabGov had the aim to present both the results achieved in the 2013/2014 academic year and the focus of the laboratory for the 2014/2015 session, namely the governance of the environmental commons. However, the event was also an occasion for a panel discussion, as LabGov had the pleasure to host prestigious speakers: Giovanni Lo Storto, LUISS Guido Carli CEO; Carmelo Troccoli, the National Secretary of Coldiretti Giovani Impresa; Luca D’Eusebio from the association Zappata Romana; Albino Ruberti, Managing Director and President of Zètema Progetto Cultura s.r.l. and coordinator of the working group Lazio Expo 2015. Professor Christian Iaione and Professor Gregorio Arena (Labsus) participated at the conference as LabGov founders and promoters.
Four neo-LabGovers, Marina Bassi, Edoardo De Stefani, Federica Maranesi and Leonardo Rossi made an introductive speech and presented the video that has been realized by the LabGovers in collaboration with Doctor Morello and Doctor Sbordoni from Officine GM. The video perfectly expressed the spirit of LabGov: youth, participation, training, and social innovation. Then, they spoke about the goals achieved during this academic year, which are impressive: ReinventAda, ReinventAda + and Human Ecosystem.
ReinventAda consisted in the regeneration of the Flora’s temple in Villa Ada’s park, which took place in October 2013. In that occasion, the LabGovers wanted to create a new form of governance of the commons and for this reason, they decided to practically take care of this site, by giving it new life through a restoration activity, under the supervision of the “Sovrintendenza Capitolina”. It is still an ongoing project and in fact, on June 26th 2014, LabGov will launch the second edition of the event: ReinventAda +. This year, LabGov will be the promoter of a memorandum of understanding open to all those associations willing to take care of Villa Ada, thanks to the model provided by the Bologna’ regulation about the collaboration between citizens and public administration for the cure and regeneration of the urban commons. The translation in English of the latter has been another goal achieved by LabGov 2014 and it will be an important documentation source for all foreigners who have already demonstrated a genuine interest in the LabGov project.
Nevertheless, the most important project that LabGov had the honour to carry out during the last semester has been “Human Ecosystems”. The latter is a new technology that qualitatively and quantitatively measures all information that human beings produce in the main social media and gives us back the real time geography of our relations, ideas and conversations in the form of an ever-changing map. In strict collaboration with the creators of this device, Salvatore Iaconesi and Oriana Persico, and with Roma Capitale, the LabGovers wrote a European project in response to a Horizon 2020 call for proposal.
All participants to the conference positively welcomed these results and after this brief introduction, the conversation with the host speakers began. The conversation revolved around the themes of Expo 2015, which perfectly coincide with those on which LabGov is based. In particular, since LabGov focus of the 2014/2015 academic year will be the environmental commons, the LabGovers asked the host speakers to meditate on possible solutions to the problem of a healthy, secure and sustainable global sustenance and on LabGov proposal of the vegetable garden sharing.
Giovanni Lo Storto, LUISS Guido Carli CEO, expressed his enthusiasm for the goals LabGov achieved during the last academic year. He was fundamental in LabGov creation and without his support, such a great success would not have been even possible. He underlined that the natural resources are finite and that we should welcome this situation as an opportunity for the best energies of the society to create new forms of governance for the commons. Even if he could no longer participate to the conference for institutional reasons, he finally praised the choice of the word “Coltiviamoci” which implies a collective commitment towards a common goal.
Carmelo Troccoli, the National Secretary of Coldiretti Giovani Impresa, picked up the baton and continued the discussion. He praised LUISS Guido Carli University for its commitment towards such important and living matters. He gave a picture of the Italian agriculture, showing how it is one of the most competitive in the world. In fact, even though the country has never invested in new technologies or in the GMOs, it has experimented different innovations, which mainly derive from the capacity to be creative. In Italy, a new development method was born, centred on the concept of diversity and for this reason, the successful idea of “smart territories” was launched.
Luca D’Eusebio, instead, told the experience of an informal association: Zappata Romana. Unconsciously, more than 40 voluntary associations of citizens over time have decided to take care of abandoned gardens and have promoted their regeneration. In this context, Zappata Romana created an on-line map of all these experiences and for the first time, the involved associations could communicate with each other. In addition, Zappata Romana gathered all the success stories in a single Handbook, which has been published on the internet. Nevertheless, Luca D’Eusebio admitted that none of these experiences collaborated with the public administration and consequently, some of them followed a regulation process, which in the case of the XI Municipality of Rome has brought the approval of a Municipal regulation for the governance of the vegetable garden sharing.
Finally, Albino Ruberti, Managing Director and President of Zètema Progetto Cultura s.r.l. and coordinator of the working group Lazio Expo 2015, intervened in the debate. He argued that the experience of the Lazio Region in Expo 2015 has superseded the classic hierarchical method in favour of a universal representation of all trade associations of the territory, with the aim of highlighting the excellence it has reached. Since the Lazio Region will enjoy a prominent position for the whole duration of Expo 2015, the latter represents the perfect opportunity to create long-term paths and to promote sustainability, cultural and tourism valorisation, the international dimension of local enterprises and new start-ups. Moreover, the institutions chose 8 macro-themes that constitute the fundamental prerequisites in order to select the experiences that will presented: the relationship between food and tourism; water; the city-country cleavage; sustainable nutrition; the relationship between genius and innovation; food products; the productive chain of the gastronomic itineraries; centrality of the city of Rome.
In the end, Professor Gregorio Arena (Labsus) and Professor Christian Iaione made the final remarks. In particular, the former informed the audience that the same day, the Bologna’s regulation has been finally approved by a large majority and suggested a reflection on the concept of “sharing”, on which a society should lay its foundations, together with the values of autonomy, trust, responsibility, reputation and transparency. Both professors hope for a radical change of the governance and while thanking all speakers for their participation, they distributed the certificate of attendance to all neo-LabGovers.
“Coltiviamoci” has been an interesting and amazing opportunity to share values and success stories and to lay the foundations of the 2014/2015 LabGov edition. Join LabGov II edition and you will do the most formative experience ever!
by Alessandra Feola | Apr 21, 2014 | The Urban Media Lab
On Monday 28th April, 2014 twenty students of Gaetano De Sanctis High School, in collaboration with Labsus – Laboratory for the subsidiarity and Retake Roma will present the new edition of Rock Your School – School of civic care of the commons. The event hosted in the Aula Magna of De Sanctis High School in via Cassia, 931 will be at 12:00.
The project aims to bring to the young generation an experience of shared care of a common good such as the school. The actors involved are the students and the teachers, that lived the school in everyday life, but also Public administration and the civil society of the neighborhood that acknowledge great importance to the school and its role in society.
This project designed and launched by Labsus in 2010 seeks to engage students in taking care of the commons and in training for the respect of environment. Students will receive at the end of the project a certificate in Active Citizenship.
Rock your School consists of two parts, on the one hand a theoretical part in which students (and all participants) are invited to reflect about the principles of active citizenship, on the other hand a practical part in which through experimentation on field there will be possible to appreciate concretely how the civic care of the commons create added value in the community. Students in fact will be directly involved in the care of their school thanks to the partnership with the XV Municipality of Rome.
The presentation will be the occasion for the students to tell their experience of these months of training, started in November 2013, and to make some reflections about what they have learnt. Moreover on the same day will be presented the three projects of civic care of the commons elaborated during this period and that will be implemented during the month of May 2014.
The program will be as follows:
h 12.00
Geetings of Head-teacher Maria Laura Morisani
Presentation of “Rock your School”
Speakers:
Gregorio Arena President of Labsus – Laboratory for the subsidiarity
Paola Carra Retake Roma;
Danilo Rocca President of De Sanctis High School Council
h 12.30 Presentation of three projects elaborated and to be realized by the students
h 13.00 Conclusion
Speakers:
Daniele Torquati President of XV Municipality of Rome,
Alessandro Cozza Vice-President in charge of Culture, Sport, School, Transparency and Participation of XV Municipality of Rome
Elisa Paris in charge of Suburbs, Public Works, Urban Transformation, Transport and Mobility of XV Municipality of Rome
Michela Ottavi in charge of Social Policies, Social Support and Subsidiarity, Health and Equal opportunities of XV Municipality of Rome
h 13.30 Luch provided by De Sanctis High School.
by Lucia Mosca | Mar 8, 2014 | Luiss LabGov 2013-2014
MEETING MINUTES, FEBRUARY 28th 2014
The second meeting of the new cycle of seminars of LabGov was held at LUISS – Guido Carli, Viale Romania, 32. The agenda focused on the presentation of the “Regulation on collaboration between citizens and the Administration for the care and regeneration of urban commons”, presented on February 22nd in Bologna. Prof. Gregorio Arena, President of Labsus – Laboratory for subsidiarity, explained how the Regulation is actually the first case in Italy to incorporate concretely the principle of horizontal subsidiarity, as advocated by Art. 118 of the Italian Constitution.
An initial focus has gone immediately to the question: why a regulation rather than a law? As it is explained, there might be in the near future some sort of regional laws governing such matters; however the risk of the so-called institutional bricolage has to be avoided – which often leads to the limitation of the autonomous initiative, rather than to its promotion. Historically, moreover, the need for intermediate organizations has always been registered in each social system – let’s just think of the Corporations in the Middle Ages, or to the encyclical Quadragesimo Anno issued by Pope Pius XI (1931) which called for the administrative decentralization and for the fragmentation of the services provided by the Public sector.
The discussion then moved on the choice between local administrations and the state administration for what concerns the protection of citizens’ activities: after an exchange of views on this issue, it has come to the conclusion that it is the case for the local government to ensure and support these activities in the first place. It is not only the internal debate at the meeting that suggests us this type of approach to the topic: the jurist Sabino Cassese, at the end of the 80s, noted that the 70% of the total amount of resources used for the functioning of the Italian system is monopolized by the services provided by municipalities; in addition to that, the reform of Title V of the Italian Constitution in 2001 represents a further example of this thesis.
The Municipality of Bologna was taken as an example of the fact that Italy is an incubator of priceless public goods and of cities of rare beauty. Today we live in a time of (re-)discovery of such assets. The arcades of Bologna are a good example: they have all the necessary features to be defined by UNESCO as world heritage, as long as someone decides to take care of their maintenance. To date, only 60 owners in the area were successfully mobilized in this way. Why? Due to lack of information and training. In this respect, Donato Di Memmo, currently Head of Administrative Simplification, Institutional Affairs, Decentralization and Metropolitan Cities in the municipality of Bologna, in the June of last year, ‘put down’ a first but articulated Memorandum of Understanding between citizens and the Administration.
What do we mean by the term ‘administration’? An evergreen distinction (Giannini, 1961): Administration as activity and Administration as organization. When we speak of Administration as an organization, we mean a redundant system – in the sense that it has influence – on the functions and activities of the very same Administration; if the administrative organization is hierarchical, the activities of popular initiative will suffer, because they are perceived as secondary. Instead, Art. 98 par. 1 of the Italian Constitution: ‘Public employees are at the exclusive service of the Nation.’ establish a different concept of Administration. It is possible to highlight three major observations: 1) the meaning of public employees listed above assume a paternalistic meaning – which sees citizens as ‘passive’ subjects in providing care and protection; 2) service is here understood as in the civil servant case of Anglo-Saxon derivation, according to which the public employee can not and must not be in a higher position with respect to the citizens; 3) in the final analysis, the term Nation – and not Republic, as is the case of many other articles of the Italian Constitution – has to be intended not as an aggregation of institutions, but as a defined territory to preserve and defend. Once concluded the debate which covered differences and relations between citizens and the Administration according to the Italian Constitution, as well as in the everyday life, we moved to investigate the Regulation on collaboration between citizens and the Administration for the care and regeneration of urban commons’ specifically, by giving some definitions.
– URBAN COMMONS – are those which, if enriched, enrich all, if impoverished, impoverish all: it is the case of goods that are, tangible, intangible and digital that citizens and the Administration, through participatory and deliberative procedures, acknowledge to be functional to the well-being of individuals and of the collectivity. Pursuant to Art. 118 last paragraph of the Italian Constitution, the citizens share the responsibility with the administration (defined as responsiveness – ability to respond) of the regeneration of these goods in order to improve the collective use;
– MEASURES OF CARE: interventions aimed at the protection, preservation and maintenance of the urban commons to ensure and improve their usability and quality – an element that is reactive and proactive in protecting the urban commons;
– MEASURES OF REGENERATION: interventions aimed at the recovery, transformation and innovation of the commons, as a part of social, economic, technological and environmental processes, broad and integrated, which have an impact on improving the quality of life in the city.
CHAPTER I – GENERAL PROVISIONS contains a series of precise and accurate ‘rules’ to which the regulation is harmonized – namely the Constitution, general rules, municipal statute and local rules – and emphasizes the ultimate purpose of the interaction between citizens and Administration: collaboration. Something that can be easily derived, following three principles of the text: freedom, responsibility, and solidarity.
by Lucia Mosca | Feb 20, 2014 | The Urban Media Lab
by Lucia Mosca | Feb 10, 2014 | Luiss LabGov 2013-2014, The Urban Media Lab
On Friday 25 October LabGov – Laboratory for the Governance of the Commons, presented its first shared regeneration experiment. The event called “ReinventAda” aimed to take care of the Temple of Flora, the XVIII century Pallavicini’s Coffeehouse in Villa Ada in Rome.
LabGov, a project born in the LUISS University of Rome, was ideated and strongly supported by Labsus – Laboratory for the Subsidiary and its President and Director, respectively Professors Gregorio Arena and Christian Iaione. The great challenge that LabGov wants to solve is to find mechanisms that allow citizens, public administrations, associations and business to create alliances in order to find common solutions to common problems and to create the shared administration of the commons.
The Temple of Flora even if has been renovated several times by the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage of Rome, was in decay, above all due to graffiti on the walls and garbage. Institutions needed the help of citizens that in the everyday life can take care of this artistic edifice immersed on the green.
The activity has been to clean up the building and the space around from the garbage and to whitewash the walls from graffiti. The Temple of Flora, Roman deities of the spring, symbolically wants to recall the idea of a new Renaissance, made possible through an alliance between citizens and public administration.
The day spent in Villa Ada, a beautiful city park, formerly the residence of the Italian royal family, saw the Labgovers weave an alliance with the by the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage of Rome, thanks to which the intervention has been possible and that was very enthusiastic of the project. The enlighten manager, Mrs Giovanna Alberta Campitelli, in charge of Villas and Historic Parks, welcomed the project and opened the door of the administration.
Another important alliance established has been that with the Department of Environment and Department of Culture of Rome Capital, of which the representatives, respectively Mrs. Estella Marino and Flavia Barca participated in the initiative by painting walls and picking up garbage. Guest of events also the “Founding Fathers” of LabGov, the General Director of LUISS University Giovanni Lo Storto, and President and Vice-President of Labsus, Professor Gregorio Arena and Mrs. Maria Teresa Rosito.
The primary objective of ReinventAda was to raise awareness of the local community toward a common good that plays an important role in the quality of life of citizens such as this city park, with naturalistic, artistic and cultural heritage.
A second important aspect is to bring together different subject, governmental and non-governmental, interested to the wellbeing of the Villa, and facilitate theirs common work along a path that have to conduct to the shared administration of Villa Ada. Moreover this experiment should be a model for other similar situations in villas and historical parks in the city of Rome.
A strategy based on shared administration could bring a contribution of times, energies, ideas, skills, talents, resources and competences from civil society that represent the real added value of this model, useful for a better management of environmental, artistic and cultural heritage.
This new paradigm of administration, complementary not alternative, that strengthens the classical one, intends to increase the responsibility of all subject willing to take care of the problems of the community. And the event of ReinventAda confirmed how all the subjects involved has been ready and strongly active in supporting, promoting and concretely participate.
On the one hand, ReiventAda, has transformed for one day Villa Ada in a theater in which active citizens can express all their willingness and awareness of the importance of the space around them. On the other hand public administration can start this transformation in three ways: simplifying the procedures and the rules to allow an easier access for citizens; providing instruments that come from the education, to the organization since the materials necessary for the realization of these kind of projects; coordinating and ensuring the quality of the project.
This has been the first step towards a project that aims to create a shared governance of the Villa, providing institutions mechanism that allow normal citizens to take care of the immense cultural heritage that is all around us.
On May 19th 2014, LabGov – Laboratory for the Governance of the commons organized the event “Coltiviamoci” at LUISS Guido Carli University in Rome. In organizing such a meeting, LabGov had the aim to present both the results achieved in the 2013/2014 academic year and the focus of the laboratory for the 2014/2015 session, namely the governance of the environmental commons. However, the event was also an occasion for a panel discussion, as LabGov had the pleasure to host prestigious speakers: Giovanni Lo Storto, LUISS Guido Carli CEO; Carmelo Troccoli, the National Secretary of Coldiretti Giovani Impresa; Luca D’Eusebio from the association Zappata Romana; Albino Ruberti, Managing Director and President of Zètema Progetto Cultura s.r.l. and coordinator of the working group Lazio Expo 2015. Professor Christian Iaione and Professor Gregorio Arena (Labsus) participated at the conference as LabGov founders and promoters.