Scientific Director: Maria Rita Testa

While traditional research on social stratification has extensively examined the geographical dimensions of social inequalities, in recent decades, a surprisingly smaller number of studies have focused on how spatial arrangements influence the intergenerational reproduction of social inequalities. GESI (Geography and Social Inequality in Italy) is the first comprehensive study to investigate how an individual's place of origin influences various aspects of their life path and impacts social inequalities in life outcomes in Italy. The project considers the multidimensional and cumulative nature of social stratification, focusing on various aspects of individuals' life opportunities: educational and employment opportunities, paths of social mobility, family dynamics, and internal geographic mobility. Four objectives are addressed: investigating the effects of geographic origin on individuals' life outcomes; studying how geographic origin intersects with other dimensions of social inequality (e.g., education, social background, etc.); examining how internal geographic mobility reinforces existing social inequalities; and collecting new and original data on the various aspects of social and geographic inequalities.

Scientific lead: Pierpaolo Benigno 

JUMPS aims to study the effectiveness of the current combination of monetary and fiscal policies, along with its potential trade-offs and risks, with a focus on distributional issues and political economy considerations that may affect its implementation. The proposal can be divided into six themes that will be pursued in a coherent and coordinated manner: 1) Monetary policy stimulus: studying the effectiveness of the PEPP compared to alternative strategies, such as helicopter money and enhanced forward guidance; analyzing the sovereign debt risk stemming from the liquidation of the PEPP. 2) Fiscal policy stimulus: provide a quantitative assessment of structural investments from both a micro and macro perspective, developing a new generation of models that integrate the macro-dynamic approach with fiscal microsimulation. 3) Effects of reallocating public investments across sectors: studying the effects of reallocation and the cross-sectoral impacts of adopting new technologies, skill-oriented technological change, and the complementarities between capital and skills. 4) Regional effects of public investment: explaining the heterogeneity in policy multipliers, measuring capital misallocation across European regions, and studying how public investment can influence it. 5) Political feasibility: studying the sentiment of the European population after COVID regarding public interventions, redistributive rights, and intergenerational policies to identify a social welfare function needed to compare policy proposals for improving efficiency that are also politically viable. 6) Policy recommendation: Identify a set of policy recommendations that should guide the post-COVID recovery. The results of JUMPS will be condensed into a series of policy proposals that will strengthen the project's social impact.

Scientific lead: Maria Isabella Leone 

This research project explores the conditions that can help develop a new generation of public governance capable of effectively engaging in multi-stakeholder collaborative processes aimed at promoting and generating social impact. The focus is on public governance of open social innovation, as the public sector can drive these processes and serve as a key player among a range of stakeholders addressing the most pressing social needs. The project addresses the following research questions: 1) What are the key components and characteristics of open social innovation processes that can be translated into the design of a new, place-based public governance model? (co-definition) 2) What are the enabling factors of governance that support the open social innovation ecosystem? (experimentation) 3) How can open social innovation be institutionalized as a new governance structure for the next generation of place-based public governance? (development and institutionalization).

Scientific Director: Lorenzo de Sio 

The recent disruptive political shift in the Western world—Brexit, Trump, competing parties across Europe, and the formation of the first “populist” government in Western Europe in Italy in 2018—has profoundly challenged theories on voting behavior and party competition. This has led most scholars to offer broad explanations based on populism and irrational public opinion. However, current research only superficially addresses the potential process of deideologization, lacking a process-oriented focus (and it does not consider the impact of the COVID crisis, which could potentially lead to further changes). POSTGEN addresses this gap by providing an in-depth analysis of the mechanisms and dynamics of a possible deideologization, specifically focusing on Italy, which has been at the forefront of disruptive political change. It adopts a generation-aware perspective (necessary to understand change) with an emphasis on younger generations and an innovative focus on: time, by tracing the (memories and) dynamics of how political attitudes are formed (at the individual, generational, and collective levels) and their impact on political behavior; the meanings associated with various political issues, and the (lack of) general ideological organization of these issues; and non-political actors and influencers, and their growing influence in an era of crisis for epistemic authorities.