Collaborations and projects

The Governance & Social Innovation (GSI) Center represents one of the main entities in Italy engaged in innovative research, consulting and training, with a strong orientation towards public administrations. Our approach is based on a logic of inclusive governance of services, promoting collaboration among a wide range of actors within the public sector. 

Our main partners include Ministries and Agencies, national and European Authorities and Bodies, Regions and Provinces, Municipalities and Metropolitan Cities, Health Authorities, Third Sector entities, and private stakeholders who share an interest in collaborating with public administrations.
We work closely with these organizations to stimulate innovation in key areas such as Local Government, Healthcare, Social, and Sustainability. 

Our joint efforts aim to create innovative solutions that are critical to addressing today's challenges and evolving our society towards a more equitable and sustainable future.

Collaborations

In the implementation of training projects and courses, the GSI Center actively collaborates with Ca' Foscari Challenge School, which guarantees managerial management of postgraduate and continuing education initiatives.

The goal is to create a layered offering that, by enhancing the scientific and teaching capabilities of the University, can address the market with different products such as Master's degrees with professionalizing content and Executive Master's degrees, advanced training courses and projects on order.
 

 

The Center constantly collaborates with Ca' Foscari Challenge School to develop training projects. 

Since april 2020, the GSI Centre has been collaborating with  YSBC - Yunus Social Business through which it designs the dissemination of social business theories.

Ongoing Projects

Local Authorities

Municipalities are the public divisions closest to the citizen, the place where services are planned and delivered and investments are made. Municipalities and their associative forms, Provinces, Metropolitan Cities and Regions are the entities in the multilevel system called upon to govern the complexity and speed of an increasingly interconnected world. The challenges are epochal, and among local governments, municipalities are the key element in holding society together. The GSI Center supports municipalities in their daily work through synergistic actions that aim at staff training, the study of intelligent and generative solutions, and the implementation of tools for inclusive governance in view of the new role of the local authority as 'director' of the actors in the territory.

Specifically, the GSI Center is actively involved in: 

  • training of public employees and administrators with training paths aimed at strengthening 'traditional' skills and knowledge and developing the skills of the new public administration;
  • applied research for solving practical issues and developing innovative solutions;
  • dissemination of research results at conferences, conventions and events in the field and open to the public.

Since 2015, there has been active multidisciplinary and comparative research that gives rise to an annual report, “The Ca' Foscari Report on the Commons” , involving a network of high-profile academics, experts and professionals from numerous institutions and professional realities, leading the GSI center to be a laboratory for theoretical and practical reflection on forms of community governance.

Healthcare

The pressures arising from demographic, social and epidemiological changes at a global level are challenging the sustainability of National Health Systems (NHS).  The collaboration between our Research Center and the Health and Social Care Area of the Veneto Region-along with Azienda Zero and the Health Boards-represents a joint effort to address these challenges through the development of innovative solutions aimed at promoting and guaranteeing a social and health service that respects the constitutional principles of equality, equity and solidarity, as well as remaining at the forefront of resource management and care delivery.

Specifically, the priorities addressed within this collaboration, which is crucial in accompanying the research and development process that accompanies the evolution of the Regional Health System (RHS), concern:

  • the adoption of a multi-level strategic planning model, allowing the RHS to be projected into the future, aligned with the overall development objectives of the Veneto Region and able to generate innovation and be adaptive to the changes, even sudden ones, required;
  • the reorganization of technical-administrative processes with a view to performance orientation and integration between the different levels of the RHS (General Management Health and Social Area, Zero Company, ULSS/University Companies, Support Companies);
  • attention to the frontiers of innovation, paying particular attention to the potential offered by virtual hospital systems and e-health to optimize care delivery, as well as the effects arising from sustainability policies;

In addition to collaboration with the Health and Social Care Area of the Veneto Region, the Center has carried out projects to support insurance funds and planning bodies in defining models of integrative health care for inclusion in second-level collective bargaining.

The GSI Center has also collaborated with the National Institute of Health, Ministry of Health and various regions and local health authorities on issues related to health promotion and in particular in the evaluation of interventions, programs, plans (national, regional, local).

Social

Demographicsand social changes, combined with an ever-changing welfare system, require new approaches and models of governance from Public Administrations and Third Sector Entities, with the aim of promoting and supporting the well-being of citizens and local communities. 

Through collaborations with Health Authorities, Municipalities, “Ambiti Territoriali Sociali”, Third Sector Entities and Intermediary Bodies, our Center promotes paths of social innovation and supports the development of shared territorial governance models in order to define planning and design processes oriented to the generation of positive social impacts on territories. Our innovative support - carried out through research, training, accompaniment and consulting activities - has allowed us over the years to orient welfare policies towards a more equitable and sustainable vision.

Sustainability

The GSI Center acts as a promoter and collector of initiatives, events and projects that support the achievement of the sustainability goals defined with Agenda 2030.

In addition to promoting research actions geared toward fostering attention to sustainability, the GSI Center has been coordinating projects aimed at:

  • fostering and promoting the adoption of corporate social responsibility practices, including activating research oriented to translate for SMEs the assumption of sustainability strategies with a view to business durability.
  • to support equal opportunities and gender equality by fostering applied research actions in collaboration with various entities of the Veneto Region. 

Other Projects

The Center is also involved in other projects geared toward promoting social innovation interventions and revision of governance models, such as interventions carried out within the justice system.

We support different actors in various capacities with the aim of promoting positive social impacts: from applied research to project management, with a joint action with Ca' Foscari University and its Departments.

The following lines of research are currently active or in the final stages:

  • Collaboration with the National Forensic Council in order to analyze the new judicial geography reform proposals and possible scenarios;
  • Support to the collaboration between Ca' Foscari University and the Veneto Regional Council, aimed at supporting the collection, analysis and processing of data concerning the economic, social and health situation in Veneto;
  • Support to the collaboration between Ca' Foscari University and the Veneto Region for the implementation of research activities pertaining to the economic profiles of differentiated regionalism;
  • Support to the Department of Economics of Ca' Foscari University of Venice within the Project “Uni4Justice - Universitas for Justice. Program for the quality of the justice system and the effectiveness of due process,” funded by the Ministry of Justice with PON-Governance and Institutional Capacity 2014-2020 funds and which saw Ca' Foscari University Venice as a project partner together with thirteen other Italian universities (project leader: Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna), carry out applied research in order to elaborate actions to improve the efficiency and performance of judicial offices through technological innovation, organizational support to the computerization and telematization of judicial offices, dissemination of specific innovations and support to the activation of change management interventions.