Giovanni Ginocchini is the director of Fondazione Innovazione Urbana, an urban innovation foundation in Bologna, Italy. The foundation was established in 2018 with the goals of strengthening its role as a facilitator of new ideas in the city, collecting innovative actions, and stimulating dialogue between citizens, institutions, and organizations. The foundation operates projects like District Labs, U-Lab, and Air Lab to engage citizens in collaborative processes around issues like public space regeneration, accessibility, and air quality. It measures its success based on levels of citizen participation but acknowledges challenges in balancing citizen needs with institutional requirements.

1. Giovanni Ginocchini
Director
Fondazione Innovazione Urbana
Urban Centers: acting upon or with cities?
October 19, 2018
University of Lisbon, Institute of Social Sciences, H2020 ROCK
Centre for Urban Information of Lisbon (CIUL)
Towards a
Collaborative
City

5. From EBO to FIU
2003
EBO
2006
UCB
2018
FIU
2018
FIU
2018
FIU

6. Why we change our statusWhy we change our status

7. Why we change our status
Willingness to affirm and strenght its role
as a collective brain, a place where new ideas
become reality, a collector of innovative actions
and a meeting point able to stimulate the
dialogue between citizens, public institutions,
associations and bottom-up movements, that all
together represent the economic, social and
cultural world active in the area.

8. Goals

9. Goals
The innovative work of the new born foundation
is evident on its desire to answer to the
questions about the construction of the city:
who are the main actors titled to decide
for the future of the city and who pertain
to this peculiar organism?
and how we should govern the city in a more
collaborative way?

10. Operational Structure and services
The Foundation works as an “open lab” with 3
main pillars of action, representing in the
meantime three different areas or
departments:
• Information, promotion and widespread
communication on the territory;
• Management of participatory processes
aiming to boost citizens participation to public
life and the co-design of the city;
• Analysis of city transformation and work on
data.

11. Why we change our statusAnalysis of City transformationUrban Center Bologna

12. Analysis of City transformationCivic Immagination

13. Mapping the present

14. Legal Structure
Legal entity founded by the City of Bologna
and the University of Bologna.
The Foundation is supported by the major public
agencies of the city and the 2 main Bank
Foundation having their headquarte in Bologna.

15. Budget
Budget comes from the City of Bologna,
the University of Bologna, the main partners
described above, the Bank Foundations,
National financements in case of winning
proposals in response of a specific call,
and EU project financements.

16. Team

17. Team
CDA
1 President + 4 Consultants nominated by the Municipality and the University of
Bologna
SC
Scientific Committee formed by 5 members
STAFF
Management
Administrative Office
Communication and Graphic Design
Logistics
Participation and Community Management
Experts on EU Funding
Experts on Sustainability and Climate Change
Scientific Consultants and Technological Partners on specific projects

18. Some data
2017
Visitors of the exhibitions
About 100.000 people
Worksops and Labs
More than 2000 participants, more than 80 meetings
Voters
About 15.000 people
Web
Site: 106.700 page views 32.200 single users
Facebook: 8.700 followers, Twitter: 11.700 followers
Instagram: 1.000 followers Youtube: 123.690 views

19. Pilot Projects
The Foundation manages many projects copromoted by
members and other actors of the city, collected in a frame
that we called “Urban Innovation Plan”.
We describe here two Pilot projects that are very usueful
to describe our works:
- Districts Labs
- U-Lab
- Spaces Lab
- Air Lab

20. Districts Labs

21. Districts Labs
Districts Labs
Since 2017, the City of Bologna includes on its annual budget 1 million
euros for local projects co-designed by citizens. The Participatory
Budget is an initiative promoted by the City of Bologna in order to foster
the participation of citizens in the governance of the city.
The areas where citizens are requested to participate, together with their
needs, emerged during the Districts Laboratories that can be seen both
as a serie of meetings and a methodology. After the presentation of the
proposals, 3 phases are scheduled: co-designing, vote on the proposals
and project implementation.

22. Districts Labs
Main goal: engaging permanently communities, associations,
enterprises and citizens within participatory processes;
To do What: highlight priorities actions (for example in
regeneration of public buldings and open spaces, social
engagement, education, culture, etc)
Main targets: stakeholders in the first phase and citizens as a
whole in the final phase;
Where: each district has priority areas choosen according to their
social and economic conditions, forseen investments and ideas
arised within the Collaborating is Bologna project;

23. Districts Labs
The Districts Labs represent an
instrument to increase the presence on
the territory and the proximity to citizens.

24. Districts Labs
1. May 2017
Presentation to associations and
communities in each district.
2. May–June 2017
Dialogue with associations
And public meeting.
3. June–July 2017
Co-coreation and analysis of
The proposals.
4. September 2017
Proposals to be published and
explanation of projects guidelines.
5. October 2017
Proposals to be voted for
the Participatory Budget
6. November 2017
Results will be returned to
Participants. Implementation
phase of the proposals.
7. March- April 2017
Co-design process within the
Districts
2017

25. Districts Labs
The Labs will focus
on the regeneration
of public buildings that,
in some cases, have
a high simbolic value
for the city.

26. Why we change our statusU–Lab

27. U-Lab
The project is financed by ROCK (Regeneration and Optimization of
Cultural heritage in Knowledge and creative cities), an EU H2020 project
started in 2016.
U-Lab is Living Lab spacialised in participatory practices targeting the
University Area of Bologna that, despite many other european cities,
host the university district in the core of the historical centre.
The main goal is to link different expertises and sectors to co-project the
regeneration of the entire area, developing new ideas and experimenting
new methods to use public spaces and services.

28. U-Lab
U-Lab in numbers:
● More then 350 stakeholders have been involved in the process;
● it develops along 2 main actions:
1) listening and co-projecting to collect ideas and proposals during
public meetings organised in the area;
2) experimenting actions and events in the area that are selected
through an open call for proposals.
● 3 main themes: accessibility, sustainability, and collaboration for new
productions;
● 4 places: Scaravilli Square, Rossini Square, the area surrounding the
Municipal Theatre, and Via delle Moline);
● A series of ad hoc workshops focused on technologies to be applied to
the urban environment: lights and sounds instruments, urban green
technologies and others.

29. U–Lab
Megaphone
.
Antenna
.
Arena
.
Factory
.
Collaboration to Rock
European and local
Platforms
Collaboration
to Rock Atlas
Link to the Urban
Innovation Plan
.
Thematic
Workshops with
local stakeholders
Public surveys
.
Public meeting
focusing on public
spaces
.
Call for projects
Technical Focus
groups
Temporary uses
Experimentation of
new products and
services
.

30. U–Lab

31. Pilot Projects
Space Lab
The Lab responds to primary needs expressed in 2017 within the
Districts Lab process. These needs could be summarized in the
widespread necessity of new urban public spaces, connected with a new
concept of living the city and being a citizen.

32. Lab Spazi

33. Pilot Projects
Air Lab
The Lab aims to test a participatory process to involve citizens in the
creation of a communication campaign on Air Urban Quality.
Through the Lab, the Foundation aims to widespread a correct and
conscious knowledge on the actions that could worsen the air quality in
the city and those action that could instead improve the situation, while
promoting the dialogue between different formal and informal actors.

34. Lab Spazi

35. How we measure our success

36. How we measure our success
• an increment on public participation
to processes and meetings
• an increase on interest by national and
international institutions, organisations and
cities that ask us to provide them with
support and menthoring to apply the same
methodology to their respective cases
• comments from citizens
→ However, these are not always positive
but they represent a motivation to increase
our commitment and to find a correct
balance between our role of organisation
supporting citizens requests and needs,
and the necessities of the institution.

37. Failures

38. Failures
● Short term: dealing with conflicts in some of the
city areas where mediation among actors and
dialogue are not always easy to promote;
● Long term: interact with global urban changes
and stimulate the dialogue with national and
international actors;

39. Challenges
• Collection and analysis of open data;
• Expanding the involvement of private organisations and
enterprises on our activites making the Foundations a
recognised R&D organism;
• Increasing the participation of youngsters and foreign citizens;
• Making the experimenthal methodology we are testing a
standardised approach to co-design the city
→ It is foundamental to stress the importance of involving
citizens in the whole process of opinion formation and public
debating. This requires a review of the sense of ‘we’ meaning
being mutually affected by decisions.

40. Why we change our statusChallenges

41. These new challenges translate in a new headquarter for the
Foundation where:
• better experiment our processes;
• test advanced technologies;
• host events and conferences;
• set up a permanent showroom on the city and a series of
temporary exhibition.
A new headquarter

42. Challenges

43. Thank you
Salaborsa, Piazza Nettuno 3
40124 – Bologna (Italy)
giovanni.ginocchini@fondazioneinnovazioneurbana.it
www.fondazioneinnovazioneurbana.it