10.6092/issn.3034-8544/16797
UNICITYLab (2019-2022) has been an interesting three-year experience of interdepartmental and interdisciplinary cooperation taking place at the University of Padua, which sought to study and analyse the forms and effects of the presence of a pluricentennial university in a medium-sized city. The UNICITYLab activities – beyond the exploration of the characteristics and conditions of the context –have been devoted to a crucial examination of the relationships between the two chief institutions in the City and their mutual policies to cope with emerging problems. It results in a lack of information about processes in progress or institutional and non-institutional networks; a general misunderstanding about issues to manage; no awareness about the need of cooperation. UNICITYLab has worked to present evidence of the situation and the need to put forward proposals for an innovative and incisive action, with the definition of a different role from the past, proactive, open, and collaborative, in the system of local relations. The organisation of a new place for discussion, collaboration, and co-planning, which we call the “Urban Centre” in a simplified way, currently seems to be a feasible solution.
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Urbana
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New Forms of Relationships Between the University and the City: Padua, the UnicityLab Project, and the Idea of an Urban Center
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New Forms of Relationships Between the University and the City: Padua, the UnicityLab Project, and the Idea of an Urban Center
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                                                    URBANA Vol. 1, N. 1, 2024               261




New Forms of Relationships Between the
University and the City: Padua, the
UnicityLab Project, and the Idea of an
Urban Center
PEER REVIEWED


Michelangelo Savino

University of Padova

michelangelo.savino@unipd.it

Patrizia Messina

University of Padova

patrizia.messina@unipd.it

Lorenza Perini1

University of Padova

lorenza.perini@unipd.it


1.         Exploring a Medium-Sized City with a Large University.

The Italian medium-sized town of Padua, in the Veneto region, represents
one of the most emblematic examples of an urban context, in which the
presence of the University is crucial, since it assumes a leading role in the
creation of an identifying image of the city, underlying the influence of
the institution in the development of the economy, as well as in the
implementation of the transportation’s facilities, involving also the social
relations among the different populations that share the same urban
space. Although the social and economic reality of the city is partly
balanced by the presence of other productive activities and institutions
besides the University, in recent years the academic organization has
been growing a lot, gaining relevance both in terms of students enrolled,
researchers involved, staff, and functions performed (beyond the
traditional activities of teaching and researching), and also in terms of a
conjunctural downsizing of other productive sectors that, in the recent
past, had significantly affected the city's growth and its spatial
organization.

1
    Corresponding author.



                                                                   Copyright 2024 The Author(s)
                                               This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.3034-8544/16797               Attribution 4.0 International License
                                                          URBANA Vol. 1, N. 1, 2024          262



In short, the University today determines the overall functioning of the
town.
However, with some surprise, during the researches performed within
the UnicityLab project, what we have discovered is that, beyond the 800-
year history of the University in the city, the reality of the institution and
the urban condition of the student population, as well as of all the
personnel who in the University and with the University work, is, on the
whole, very little explored. Most of the inferences between the two
spheres are still unknown or not considered, almost absent is any
reference to them in major programmatic or planning documents, either
by the University institution or by the local authority.
Just to give an initial idea of the size of the two contexts in comparison,
we can point to some data: despite the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic,
that have profoundly challenged the University – in its structures, its
functioning and also in its social role – in the a.y. 2020-2021 the University
of Padua (considered a large University in the Italian rankings), had
registered the enrollment of 69,240 students, with an increase of 6.4%
over the previous academic year. 2 In addition to students, the University
population currently consists of 2,369 faculty members and researchers,
4,773 doctoral students, fellows and residents, and 2,480 members of the
technical-administrative staff. This large and diverse amount of people
insists every day on a medium-sized city like Padua, which has a resident
population of 208,881 inhabitants.3 These data alone should be enough to
indicate the weight of the University over the city, prompting a deep
reflection on the implications of this situation. However, not only the
2019 Urban Mobility Plan (PUMS) 4 did not pay specific attention to
mobility determined by the presence of the University, but also in the
more recent urban planning tool adopted by the Municipality in April
2021, the presence and the possible role of the academic institution in the
urban growth processes is not even mentioned, except in a very general
chapter dedicated to innovation, research and development, and much
less does the document outline possible locations of new University
services and facilities or strategic lines for a redesign of the already
existing University locations, despite the fact that the “urgency of new
spaces” for students in the city has long been discussed.
Thus, as absurd as it may sound, according to the urban policies of the
city, the University appears to be neither a problematic factor nor a
strategic element of development; the topic is not thematized at all and
the relationship between the two institutions appears to be formalized

2
  Worth to note that 9.7% of the enrolled students were of foreign origin (Università di Padova,
Ufficio statistico, 2022 https://www.unipd.it/dati-statistici-immatricolati).
3
  Comune di Padova, Ufficio Statistico, https://www.padovanet.it/informazione/la-popolazione-
padova
4
     Comune         di    Padova,    Piano     Urbano       della   Mobilità  Sostenibile,  2019
https://www.padovanet.it/informazione/piano-urbano-della-mobilit%C3%A0-sostenibile-pums-
di-padova
                                                         URBANA Vol. 1, N. 1, 2024         263



and consolidated only at the the cultural level, where various
collaborations are ongoing for a long time, while it is completely absent
in other fields, showing a complete lack of a common vision for the urban
future of the city.

2.      A Territorial Campus.

If we look at the historical distribution of the University's activities in the
city map, we can gather some very useful elements, in order to recognize
some specific features of Padua's urban layout. However, at the same
time, this intersection results in a number of non-irrelevant and
sometimes problematic issues. Starting from its foundation (1222) to the
present, the University of Padua has established itself in a specific part of
the city: around the Bo Palace (the first ancient site of the institution) and
towards the Botanical Garden. It was not until the end of the XIX Century
that the first expansion of the University was planned within the XVI
Century walls, in the surroundings of the Piovego river, filling an area that
had hitherto remained uninhabited.5 The expansion was then
strengthened by the Hospital hub (Ospedale Giustinianeo),6 which from the
original core established in 1764 abutting the historical city center of the
town, now occupies an area of almost 44.479 acres with exclusive
functional specialization [Figure 1]. In the next few years the hospital hub
is scheduled to move from the center to the eastern outskirts of the city,
where construction will open soon on an area of nearly 126,024 acres, and
at the moment there is a huge knowledge gap about the future of this area
from both an urban planning and road system perspective, since the
complementary services and facilities built or gradually installed in
buildings and structures undergoing regeneration, essentially follow the
same settlement logic expressed so far, namely, of no dialogue between
the University and the city [Figure 2].




5
 Pietro Del Negro, et al., L’Università di Padova nei secoli: (1222-1600): documenti di storia
dell’Ateneo. (Treviso, Antilia, 2017).
6
  Il Giustinianeo: il nuovo Ospitale degli infermi di Padova. Azienza Ospedaliera, 1998.
                                                 URBANA Vol. 1, N. 1, 2024       264




            Figure 1| Distribution of Unipd sites in the urban area.
Credits: Michelangelo Savino, Patrizia Messina, Lorenza Perini for UnicityLab.
                                                        URBANA Vol. 1, N. 1, 2024        265




        Figure 2| Distribution of the Unipd services and facilities in the urban area.
       Credits: Michelangelo Savino, Patrizia Messina, Lorenza Perini for UnicityLab.


In this scenario, the processes affecting the city due to the growth of the
University seem to follow more or less these three paths:
-      the strengthening of a central core (the historic buildings of Bo and
Liviano, the administrative hub of Palazzo Storione);
-      the gradual occupation of various locations in historic as well as in
new buildings throughout the downtown area;
                                                             URBANA Vol. 1, N. 1, 2024            266



-       The expansion beyond the sixteenth century city walls and along
the Piovego river in the northeast part of the town, suggesting the
intention to create a “University citadel,” with the implementation of new
facilities, the redevelopment of some warehouses located on the site of
the “Padova Hall” (La Fiera) in the eastern outskirts of the city, and the
construction of brand new buildings on vacant land.
At the same time, there are also other operations – already established
and ongoing – to relocate the University to peripheral areas: for example
the Pediatric Research Institute “Città della Speranza” established in the
Industrial Zone of Padua (ZIP), or the Environmental Engineering Centre
in the nearby neighborhood of Voltabarozzo, or, again, the headquarters
of the School of Veterinary and Agricultural Medicine (“Agripolis”) in the
municipality of Legnaro, six miles away from Padua where the National
Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN) and the National Laboratories
Research (CNR) are located as well.
This scenario clearly outlines a typically Italian structure of a “widespread
campus”,7 a definition that underlines a situation of “ordinary disorder,”
which has little to do with the strategic creation of an organic University
system and in which problems are exacerbated both inside the enclosure
and outside the enclosure.8 While the “inside” (the University) continues
to suffer from a general insufficiency and inadequacy of spaces, the city
“outside” (the surrounding city) increasingly manifests the discomfort
produced by congestion of different activities, determined by functional
destinations that are not always compatible, accessibility that has become
more unease, and conflicts between residents and city users (not only
students) on the agenda.
In recent years, the University has also started the expansion of its
headquarters on Via Beato Pellegrino, with the redevelopment of the
former Geriatric Hospital, creating within it the Department of Human
Sciences. It has also acquired from the State Property Office the former
“Piave Barracks” (located in the western part of the historical area of the
city) for the realization of the new Social Sciences Department. As for
other disused areas scattered throughout the city, there are ideas for
possible acquisition and reuse by the University, but without an overall
vision or strategic plan. It seems clear that we are dealing with a
particularly complex system, the implications of which, both on the
spatial structure and on the functioning of the city, are easy to guess.
Meanwhile, an image of the University as a real estate developer has been
clearly spread over the last few years.



7
  Nicola Martinelli, Spazi della conoscenza. Università, città e territori. (Bari, Mario Adda Editore,
2012).
8
  Patrizia Messina and Michelangelo Savino, “UnicityLab. Un’esperienza di ricerca a Padova per
agire sulle relazioni tra Università e Città,” Regional Studies and Local Development 3, no. 3 (2022):
331-354. DOI: 10.14658/pupj-RSLD-2022-3-15.
                                              URBANA Vol. 1, N. 1, 2024   267



3.    The Knots of a Challenging relationship: Mobility, Housing, and
Services.

3.1   Mobility.

In relation to the scenario above mentioned, it is clear that many aspects
of this intertwined structure of “city with University” and/or “University
within a city,” have yet to be fully understood, in order to grasp the rich
variety of inferences and the complexity of the issues involved. First, the
issue needs to be analyzed from the point of view of the mobility: such a
“diffuse” system certainly creates problems of accessibility and travel, in
a city already plagued by an underutilized public transport system,
unable to limit the use of private vehicles-both because of the high
number of incoming commuters and city users, and because of the
reduced capillarity that the urban structure allows, with few relevant road
axes, and the existing ones already saturated and all converging towards
the city centre, which is now configured as a hypertrophic historical core
of activities and services.
Rail and bus stations, nearly coincidental access points for most students
and workers, appear eccentric to the distribution of major University
sites, facilities and laboratories, not infrequently creating widespread
discomfort [Figure 3]. Where the remedy seems to be the private vehicle,
beyond peak hour congestion, there is no shortage of difficulties in
finding sufficient surface area for parking, in addition to the dramatic
increase in Pm10 emissions (which makes Padua one of the most polluted
cities in Italy). Pollution, congestion, difficult co-existence between cars,
bicycles, and new means of electric locomotion (used mostly by students,
less so by residents), insecurity, and inadequate routes have become a
new emergency that neither the University's Mobility manager nor the
Municipality's Mobility manager have thought to address jointly.
                                                 URBANA Vol. 1, N. 1, 2024       268




 Figure 3| Pedestrian routes of the Unipd population within the city of Padua.
Credits: Michelangelo Savino, Patrizia Messina, Lorenza Perini for UnicityLab.
                                                        URBANA Vol. 1, N. 1, 2024       269




                       Figure 4‫ ׀‬Students' main routes to Unipd sites.
       Credits: Michelangelo Savino, Patrizia Messina, Lorenza Perini for UnicityLab.


3.2   Housing.

In this context, the student housing emergency, not perceived in the city
before the strong student protests in the summer of 2022, denouncing the
lack of housing facilities and the exorbitant rent costs, was a surprising
discovery for the city's main institutions [Figure 4]. In fact, if a “student
issue” had emerged in the past months and years, it was understood only
in terms of public order and safety, imputed to the excessive student
nightlife in the Portello University district, prompted by residents'
protests, and thus addressed as a specific and local issue, so much so that
the University did not feel involved in such a clash, intended as one of the
many disputes between residents and municipality. The housing
shortage, thus, emerged out of the blue, with the discovery of a very large
number of students seeking an accommodation in town, which led to the
identification, unambiguously and for the first time, of a problem that
required specific attention [Figure 5]. On the other hand, the numbers of
students enrolled in Padua seeking accommodation, according to some
surveys, are fluctuating and unreliable, and if one looks at the data related
to the commuters both short distances (5-40 miles and 15'-60' average
travel distance) and long distances (40-90 miles and 61'-90' average travel
                                                             URBANA Vol. 1, N. 1, 2024           270



distance),9 it is possible to note that in many cases, either because of the
need to take some particular courses or due to a choice related to other
factors, students residing in municipalities very close to Padua, choose to
reside at least for a defined period in the city. More stable are the numbers
of the off-campus students, coming from other regions (although, during
the pre-Covid years, there had been a sharp decrease coinciding with the
decline in enrollment in the Law and Medicine schools, now in strong
recovery). In this scenario, even less known and not considered is the
issue of the international student population, composed of those who are
attracted by Erasmus flows and by foreign students regularly enrolled at
Unipd. This population has increased in recent times due to some
generous welcoming policies put into place by the University toward
student refugees and toward those who have fled war scenarios. Beyond
the difficulties of these types of students in finding affordable housing,
what is important to note is that, in many cases, there have been strong
forms of discrimination against them.10
As anticipated, it is surreal that in a University city like Padua, surveys of
student housing conditions are non-existent and housing demand has
never been investigated and the data available we owe them all to the local
press.11 Detailed surveys of the local housing market are also lacking, 12
even in light of the first phenomenon of alternative tourist
accommodation, marked by the increase of B&B and tourist rentals in
other University cities, where tourists turn out to be real competitors to
students in the search for housing. 13 Therefore, with great difficulty, the
real housing demand in the city is inferred (in its exclusive quantitative
dimension), which also shows opacity in the data collection of both the
regional office for the right to study (ESU) and the religious institutes,
whose presence is significant in the city. 14 Moreover, among the causes of
this difficulty in monitoring there is the nonavailability of data regarding
the number of off-site students who decide to find accommodation
outside Padua, in the nearby towns of Mestre or Vicenza for example (as
would appear from some interviews). Beyond this scenario, what remains

9
 An off-campus student is defined as a student residing in a municipality or locality more than 50
miles away from the university site or requiring travel time of more than 80 minutes, and who for
this reason is staying on a paid basis with a regular contract at the university site for a period of
not less than 10 months. A student residing in a municipality or locality more than 50 miles or
more than 80 minutes away from the university site who does not take lodging on a paid basis is
considered a commuter (https://www.unipd.it/borse-studio-alloggi).
10
   Dario Lucchesi and Vincenzo Romania, “L’Università di Padova tra internazionalizzazione e
pandemia: l’impatto del Covid-19 sulla comunità studentesca internazionale,” Regional Studies
and Local Development 3 (2022): 89-116. DOI: 10.14658/pupj-RSLD-2022-3-5.
11
    “L'aumento di case per turisti “inguaia” single e studenti,” Padovaoggi, August 7, 2023
https://www.padovaoggi.it/economia/aumento-case-turisti-inguaia-single-studenti-7-agosto-
2023.html
12
   Roberto Antonietti and Elena Botton, “Flussi studenteschi e mercato immobiliare: il caso
dell’Università di Padova,” Regional Studies and Local Development 3, no. 3, (2022): 139-160.
13
   Sarah Gainsforth, Oltre il turismo. Esiste un turismo sostenibile? (Roma, Eris edizioni, 2020).
14
     Diocesi     di      Padova,      https://www.diocesipadova.it/uffici/pastorale-della-cultura-e-
     delluniversita/collegi-universitari/
                                                               URBANA Vol. 1, N. 1, 2024           271



is the private market, which is largely definable as irregular: a system that
probably, until recently, ensured adequate supply to meet demand, and
which has now also entered a crisis.
The scarcity of real estate has undoubtedly been influenced by fluctuating
market trends, but also by the increase in student demand for the reasons
mentioned above.15 The press, reporting some data from different
sources, indicates for the month of August 2022 an average cost of a single
room in Padua of at least 458 Euros, with an increase in value over the
previous year of 42.2%, the highest in the country:16 a situation that could
depend on the one hand on the reduction in supply, but also on the
speculative processes determined as a result of student demonstrations.




                    Figure 5| Unipd students’ protest for housing (October 2022).
                                    Credits: Michelangelo Savino.



3.3      Services.

As regards to “services,” they should be understood in a broader sense. In
recent years, in fact, many Italian universities have begun to equip
themselves with a series of spaces and facilities intended not only for
students, but for the whole academic population. In many cases, this has
resulted in an intervention to improve comfort and reception facilities
(i.e. study rooms, meeting and gathering places), as well as in the
upgrading of existing conventional endowments (libraries, canteens,
equipped refreshment areas, equipped open spaces, sports facilities). In
some cases the improvements are related also to the improvement of
working conditions (i.e. welfare measures for the academic staff). Many


15
     “Posti letto nelle città universitarie: effetto Covid sui prezzi, in discesa dopo anni di rialzi,”
     https://www.immobiliare.it/info/ufficio-stampa/2021/posti-letto-nelle-citta-universitarie-
     effetto-covid-sui-prezzi-in-discesa-dopo-anni-di-rialzi-2197/
16
     “Stangata sulle stanze per gli studenti: a Padova i rincari più alti d’Italia,”
     https://corrieredelveneto.corriere.it/padova/cronaca/22_agosto_24/stangata-stanze-gli-
     studenti-padova-rincari-piu-alti-d-italia-d9c96a08-238c-11ed-a0c3-ae9646f5ccac.shtml
                                                              URBANA Vol. 1, N. 1, 2024   272



universities in Italy seem committed to increasing these kinds of spaces
(both quantitatively with more places and more facilities, and
qualitatively with greater design care, especially after the pandemic), or
to providing new services (co-working places, fab-labs, incubators or
innovation hubs) in order to change the traditional idea of “University
space” and change the way in which University buildings are usually
conceived.
However, this is not the case in Padua. In Padua this new trend has not
yet been grasped, and the response-when there is one-is more
conventional (increase in study rooms, extension of library access hours)
and wholly insufficient, even for services that have long been part of the
University offer (for example, the University Sports Centre-CUS) and that
in Padua are little used because, like some student halls, they are located
in peripheral areas poorly served by public transportation. Needs are thus
met by resorting to the public services the city offers – not infrequently
creating conditions of antagonism with residents – or to spaces with little
or no facilities.
Within this framework, Padua (understood both as a municipal
administration and as the governance of the University, and in some ways
also as a community) – lagging far behind other cities that have tackled
the problem (e.g., Bologna, Milan, Turin) – does not yet seem to have
understood either the dimensions of the problem and the extent of the
discomfort that affects the University population (because those seeking
housing are not only students, but also faculty and researchers who come
from other cities or countries), or how housing discomfort can be
translated into a change in the choice of University to study or do
research. Above all, it is not understood how the demands for housing
and services of the University population, residents, or new incoming
populations are intertwined and face the same difficulties requiring
effective and strategic responses.
All of this confirms that the attractiveness of a University also depends on
the quality of urban services offered by the “University city,” not only to
the residents and the inhabitants, but also to all the city users in terms of
services and facilities.

4.          The UnicityLab Project: a Starting Point.

In this context, the Laboratory on University-City Relations of Padua
(UnicityLab)17 was launched in 2018, as a multidisciplinary observatory at
the University of Padua attentive to urban development processes
involving the University, but also as a proactive “service” to the University
and the City, wanting to open also to the contributions of strategic actors
of urban development, who are involved in the research path with the aim
of working on the construction of a cohesive University city. The first

17
     The website of the project: https://www.unicitylab.eu/
                                              URBANA Vol. 1, N. 1, 2024   273



attempt, when six research departments participated in the activity, was
primarily to solve the lack of information on the impact of the University
on the city. In the following years, research developed different issues,
enlightening the complicated inferences between the two realms. Today,
UnicityLab is a permanent research hub that not only offers an
understanding of the processes and relationships that are created
between the city and the University, their impacts and thus the effects
produced by mutual influences, but also constitutes a space for
comparison and connection and co-design of joint policy interventions
for the strategic development of Padua as a “University City.” A
laboratory, therefore, at the service of the University-city, characterized
by the interweaving of multi- and interdisciplinary knowledge, gathered
through the contribution of researchers interested in participating in
collaborative work beyond the usual departmental barriers. To this end,
there is a clear need to obtain and process up-to-date data, quantitative
and qualitative information, reflections, studies, and evaluations on the
dynamics that are triggered by the presence of a large University in a
rather small urban structure, as well as the need to develop evaluation
and measurement tools useful for the promotion of social cohesion
within the different spheres of interaction that are determined in such a
particular context.
UnicityLab's research methodology, therefore, favors an open approach,
strongly marked by applied research, appropriate to the University's
“Third Mission,” in order to explore different fields of observation,
fostering dialogue between different but complementary disciplines,
unaccustomed to working together, as often happens in the Italian
system. The goal is to arrive at the identification of actions and strategies
that can ensure that the University can effectively assess the impacts (and
perverse effects) of its interventions, enhancing the benefits not only for
the academic community but also for the city, ensuring the degree of
knowledge useful to activate policies and concerted actions involving
public institutions, private actors, profit and nonprofit sectors, as well as
resident citizens. UnicityLab would also increase academic awareness of
being a strategic element of social and economic urban development and
an affecting actor of urban changes, an influential player in the public
policy process.
UnicityLab wants to pursue the fostering of shared responsibility among
all the actors involved in this process, with the intention of acting as a
generator of territorial social capital, understood as a resource of primary
importance for an integrated and sustainable development of the
territory; it wants to strive to strengthen a strategic alliance between the
University and the city, starting from the awareness that the
attractiveness of a University also depends on the quality of services,
understood as “collective goods for development,” that “its” city is able to
offer.
                                             URBANA Vol. 1, N. 1, 2024   274



In this scenario, it becomes clear that the laboratory's objective is to
produce not only “knowledge,” but also “relational goods,” making
available important information and data to plan urban development
policies, develop and share medium to long-term strategic actions, and
generate shared urban development projects that hope to be networked
with other Italian and international experiences. Therefore, UnicityLab
has set out to become a real place of meeting between the University and
the city, where to develop applied research, design and public policy
proposals, but also an opportunity to co-design events and occasions for
comparison, exchange, and collective participation for a common action
to be shared with the city of Padua and other “University cities.” The need
for a place where University impacts can freely and usefully be discussed
about urban issues, where University contribution to social and economic
growth of the city is taken into account properly is strongly evident and,
beyond the complex articulation of “networked” research, it is important
to emphasise that the intent of the Lab is not only to explore problematic
issues in the local context but rather to promote a strand of research
within the University, integrated and shared by a concretely
multidisciplinary and interdepartmental community. Always stated and
pursued, in fact, is the desire of the research group to contribute to the
solution of certain urban problems; to support the formulation of more
appropriate urban policies; to foster policy confrontation and inter-
institutional cooperation; to improve and intensify the forms of
relationship of institutions with citizens; and to be able, finally, to
guarantee, above all, a contribution to the construction of strategic
visions for the future of the city and its territories.

5.    From the UnicityLab to the Urban Centre: a New Perspective for
the Future.

After these first three years of intense interdisciplinary research, based
on the persuasion that a push toward a public policy formulation center
is necessary, the action of UnicityLab, which aims to involve institutions
in a support structure in the formulation of strategic lines and urban
policies for shared interventions, turns out to be crucial. The idea –
discussed also with some components of the Municipality board – is to
establish a shared place for the up-to-date collection of data to be
provided to a steering committee that would address the critical nodes of
urban development in the University City of Padua, with the
indispensable contribution of the University, but also of the main
stakeholders who could constitute themselves, in this case, not as
stakeholders (partisan stakeholders) but as community holders – i.e.,
stakeholders of the city community.
Such a space/place can be a valuable informative support on the
processes taking place not only in Padua, but also in other University
cities, as a strategic factor for policy orientation and for the
                                                               URBANA Vol. 1, N. 1, 2024   275



implementation of innovative projects, through an open and transparent
confrontation, both for the different actors involved in the planning
process and for the administration to be able to conceive scenarios that
are more adherent to the local reality. For example, the role of the
University in the development of the most innovative economic sectors
(research, innovation, technology, knowledge-based, etc.) but also to
identify the University students as a possible resource for the
demographic growth of the residents (thanks to their rootedness in the
city once they have completed their studies) and of greater dynamism of
the local labour market.
In this scenario, the urban centre seems to be an important and necessary
“tool” to foster the development of a system of virtuous relationships that
will ensure social cohesion, economic, and cultural growth of the area
with a perspective toward the internationalization, but also able to
enhance the resources and values of the local community. Thus, the idea
of an urban centre includes actions at both the city and the regional level,
and in this second case, in particular, UnicityLab could be an important
factor in favor of a “Regional University City” strategy, something that is
completely lacking in the Veneto region.
 In order to boost research in a wide variety of fields (of which health care
is among the most heartfelt issues in the territory) and by pushing
technological innovation, the City Region University could establish a
federated and integrated academic system of universities with
differentiated competencies, according to the system of local
preferences, rather than an omnibus decentralization like the one that is
present today and that has reintroduced, in its evolution, a “photocopy”
educational system, in the sense that each University has tended to offer,
in a progressive expansion, the same educational offerings that the large
generalist universities do.
Various experiences inform about some similar places – actual and
sometimes also virtual – in which public policies take shape trying to be
progressively adequate to the social demand of urban communities, but
also to the increasingly rapid changes of the city:
-       organization where the focus is on the transformation processes of
the city, but where the ‘narration’ of what happens is intended as an
opportunity for a public debate on the objectives, on the impacts, but also
on the possible changes to be introduced in the projects to encourage an
effective improvement of living conditions in the city (such as Urban Lab
in Turin);18
-       multidisciplinary research centers but above all a meeting point
for interactive communication on urban transformations that are
strongly aimed at 'building the future imaginary of the city’ with the
explicit intention of ‘playing a driving role’ in relations between public


18
     UrbanLab, Torino https://urbanlabtorino.it/urban-lab/ .
                                                           URBANA Vol. 1, N. 1, 2024           276



administration, universities, firms and the ‘third sector’ and local
communities (as the Fondazione Innovazione Urbana in Bologna);19
-      a permanent working group aimed to encourage and promote
events of confrontation, communication and collaboration between
public institutions, managers, and citizens concerning the local
development, to innovate and increase inclusion in region and city
management and development practices, ensuring constant exchange of
information and having incentives to collaboration (such as the Urban
Digital Centre - Innovation Lab in Rovigo).20
Three experiences, in which the University is directly involved, in some
cases also as promoter of these initiatives, show a very effective change
in some public action aimed at city development. UnicityLab, as the next
step and the upcoming goal, points out the activation of such an urban
centre capable of sustaining knowledge-based public policies and
university-supported public participation.


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Comune di Padova, Ufficio Statistico,
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19
   Fondazione Innovazione Urbana, Bologna:
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20
    Urban Digital Centre, Rovigo: https://urbandigitalcenterrovigo.it/it/content/chi-siamo .
                                                URBANA Vol. 1, N. 1, 2024    277



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