On July 18, 2025, from 9:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., the round table "Climate Change and the Future of the Como Area. Adaptation Options and Good Practices" will be held at the Cloister of Sant'Abbondio at the University of Insubria in Como. This interdisciplinary discussion will focus on the effects of climate change on the Como area and adaptation strategies.   Organized by the University of Insubria, the event will bring together academic and practical contributions on crucial topics: hydrogeological risk management, environmental impacts on lake ecosystems, the vulnerability of tourist destinations, and the resilience of mountain areas.   The meeting is coordinated by Stefano Fanetti (University of Insubria) and will feature professors, researchers, and experts from universities, research institutes, associations, and businesses.   Specifically, the panel will address the effects of global warming on the Lake Como basin and its aquatic biodiversity, the combined impact of climate change and overtourism on tourist destinations, and adaptation strategies for Alpine areas characterized by winter tourism.   The roundtable is aimed at scholars, local administrators, tourism operators, and citizens interested in understanding and addressing climate impacts at the local scale.   Admission is free.

The Department of Law, Economics and Cultures of the University of Insubria, in collaboration with Governors State University (Illinois, USA), has organized an international workshop on 8, 9 and 10 July 2025 at the Como Sant'Abbondio campus entitled: "International workshop Sustainable Destination Development Governors State University" which will be part of the GovState Faculty-Led Study Abroad Program “Honors Seminar in Rome 2025”.   The workshop will allow us to develop internationalization and develop new synergies with foreign universities. Of particular value is the possibility of welcoming the group of American scholars and students to the Como area to show in practice the results of our research activity through an immersive experience in the territorial realities partnered with NODES. The focus of the meeting will be to promote the development of research also with international entities (e.g. universities, museums, tourism and culture companies).   The themes of the event are closely connected with the objective of the NODES Ecosystem to grow the territory by using a sustainability perspective and creating direct interaction with the actors present in the territory but also of international scope.   Specifically, topics such as: experiential and sustainable hospitality to promote tourist attractiveness through the offer of unconventional, immersive and sustainable experiences; integrated tourist offer for use and integrated tourist communication aimed at enhancing local assets in a systematic way (for example, tourist packages), also through the use of digital tools.   The three-day program offers an immersive learning experience in the field of tourism destination management, with particular attention to the development of sustainable tourism. Through a combination of lectures, field trips, workshops and group activities, students will explore how tourist destinations can be managed effectively, while addressing the challenges of economic, environmental and socio-cultural sustainability.     Consult the flyer with the program.  

On Monday, July 7, 2025, from 2:30 PM to 5:15 PM, a meeting entitled "NODES CHALLENGES Initiatives for Local Innovation" will be held at Villa Toeplitz in Varese. The event, organized by the University of Insubria, leader of Spoke 3, was designed to present to citizens, businesses, and researchers the results of three challenges that have involved several Uninsubria students in recent months. Specifically, these students are from the Department of Economics, coordinated by Professors Patrizia Gazzola, Rossella Locatelli, and Alessia Pisoni, and from the Department of Law, Economics, and Cultures, coordinated by Professor Roberta Minazzi. They have had the opportunity to collaborate with leading local businesses. The three challenges: "Business Tools and Strategies for the Promotion and Communication of Cultural Initiatives for Nonprofits," "Wood for Innovative Structures at the Service of Sustainable Tourism," and "Wonderwood 2030" aimed to expose students to the comprehensive challenges companies face daily in their business and development journeys, and to develop targeted projects.   Challenge: "Business Tools and Strategies for the Promotion and Communication of Cultural Initiatives for Nonprofits" - Department of Economics   Each project was based on the management of a program of subprojects with a tutor acting as advisor and program management officer. This enabled students to work in teams on interconnected yet independent activities, each with specific objectives, deadlines, and deliverables within an integrated project ecosystem. This methodology enabled students to concretely develop their transversal skills (both classroom-acquired and personal) in a real-world context.   LAKE WRITINGS a. Mission: Culture as a strategic lever enabling new tourism formats and combating unbalanced tourism (aka overtourism). b. Operational objective: Create new experiential cultural formats with a multidisciplinary, evocative, accessible, and memorable narrative and artistic approach.   ENVY BOOKTRAILER a. Mission: Expand the reach of young audiences within the publishing market through strategic use of social media and innovation of the in-store and online customer journey, benefiting both small and large publishing houses. b. Operational objective: Increase sales of books for young audiences through targeted campaigns on TikTok and the introduction of promotional video trailers during the product evaluation phase, both online and in digital stores.   HARONIZATION OF TOURIST FLOWS AND NEW EXPERIENTIAL FORMATS   PILOT CASE DEVELOPMENT OF THE "MUSEO DELLA BARCA LARIANA" a. Mission: Culture as a strategic lever enabling new tourism formats and combating unbalanced tourism (aka overtourism). Use case: Revamping the Lariana Boat Museum b. Operational objective: Create new experiential cultural formats with a multidisciplinary, evocative, accessible, and memorable cultural, artistic, and sports program. Development of the use case in two steps: 1. Cover operating costs with a short-term strategy; 2. Integrate the museum into tourism formats with a medium-term strategy.   Challenge: "Wood for innovative structures serving sustainable tourism" - Department of Economics   As part of NovelloCase's activities, an entrepreneurial project has been conceived, currently in the early-stage phase. The project involves the construction of "nomadic housing modules" that can be used primarily for sustainable tourism experiences (e.g., immersive nature experiences). To implement it, students were asked to conduct strategic and financial analyses to assess the project's feasibility and sustainability.   The challenge proposed by NovelloCase represented an excellent opportunity to "experiment" with innovative teaching methods, involving both students from the GEEM/IBE Master's Degree Program (course "Open Innovation and Startup Ecosystems") and students from the EDIFI/FIMEDIS Master's Degree Program (course "Lab: Sustainability and the Financial System"). The former focused on analyzing the business and market model, the latter on analyzing the investment's economic and financial sustainability.   At the end of the semester, the two working groups submitted to NovelloCase a proposed "strategic roadmap" to support the company's management decision-making process. To this end, the various "strategic options" formulated by the students were supported by in-depth economic and financial analyses that allowed the company to assess the feasibility of the project (in terms of investment, economic return, and medium- to long-term sustainability) and then its implementation.   This collaborative experiment among students from diverse backgrounds, based on a cross-fertilization approach (students involved in group work tend to "absorb knowledge," contributing their skills and expertise to the realization of projects with a common goal), was a resounding success among the students involved and was fully appreciated by the company management, who complimented the faculty for their work in addressing the proposed challenge.   Challenge: "Wonderwood 2030" Department of Law, Economics, and Cultures   The challenge, launched in collaboration with Professor Stefania Cerutti of the University of Eastern Piedmont, saw the active participation of students, both male and female, who were asked to develop strategic proposals for the tourism and leisure development of the Wonderwood park in the mountainous area of Trarego Viggiona (VB), on the Piedmontese side of Lake Maggiore. The projects had to answer a series of concrete questions posed by Wonderwood, an innovative startup in the sustainable entertainment sector, with the aim of analyzing development scenarios, market targets, and potential for transforming the area into a new sustainable, multi-target destination open year-round.   During the event, professors, students, and representatives of the companies involved will discuss the challenges, objectives, and results achieved.   Iscriviti qui

The conference "Archives and Memory, Sources and Cultural Heritage: Comparing Research and Enhancement Experiences" is organized by the University of Turin (Department of Foreign Languages, Literatures and Modern Cultures, Department of Humanities, and Department of Historical Studies) on Thursday, June 19th in the Terracini Degree Hall in Palazzo Nuovo (Via Sant'Ottavio, 20; from 9:00 am to 6:00 pm) and on Friday, June 20th in the Degree Hall of the Aldo Moro Complex (Via Giuseppe Verdi, 41; from 9:00 am to 6:00 pm).   The event aims to bring together scholars who, from different perspectives, engage with the scale and space of archives and representatives of organizations dedicated to the preservation and safeguarding of various types of archival collections.   Archival sources represent a cross-disciplinary research focus (history, art history, linguistics, musicology, demo-anthropology, sociology, ethnology, etc.) and are of enormous importance for understanding and enhancing the region and its cultural heritage. From an interdisciplinary perspective, the discussion will focus on the various practices for promoting archives, reflecting on themes such as historical and oral memory, the valorization of cultural and popular heritage, and the practices of restitution of materials to communities, from the perspective of museums and sustainable tourism.   The conference will develop by comparing the experiences of several archives that, due to their multiple value, lend themselves to interdisciplinary research: the archive of the Fondazione Istituto Piemontese "Antonio Gramsci," which contains over 200 archival collections containing diverse materials, primarily related to the history of the Turin labor movement and associations, but also the personal archives of individual scholars; The Nuto Revelli Foundation archive, which preserves and promotes over a thousand hours of recordings, recently restored and digitized, as well as over 50 linear meters of photographs, letters, and testimonies from World War II, the struggle for liberation from Nazi-fascism, the Alpine troops in Russia, and the rural world; the CREO (Ethnomusic and Oral History Research Center) archive, which houses field recordings of traditional oral music and singing, as well as political and social singing; and the ABACVM (Waldensian and Methodist Cultural Heritage and Activities Archive) information system, a digital platform developed to catalog, disseminate, and promote the Methodist and Waldensian cultural heritage online.   In addition to offering an opportunity to introduce the various archives and their specificities to the scientific community, the event will also provide visibility to the organizations involved in the preservation of these materials, with the aim of proposing new visions and perspectives for their protection, promotion, and restitution. The conference will present the developments of research conducted by numerous members of NODES - Spoke 3 Tourism and Culture Industry from various Northwestern universities involved in the project (UniTo, UniVDA, UPO, UnInsubria).   The two-day conference will consist of four thematic sessions, each opening with an invited presentation. The first is dedicated to archival sources from the perspective of historical research, and will open with a presentation by Alessandro Casellato (Ca' Foscari University of Venice) entitled "Oral Archives and Historical Research: A Range of Opportunities." The second focuses on the study of archives for linguistic research, and will be introduced by a presentation by Silvia Calamai (University of Siena) entitled "Why Can't Linguistics Ignore the Oral Archives of the Past?". The third section focuses on archives of popular heritage and oral memory for ethnographic and anthropological research, opening with a joint presentation by Piercarlo Grimaldi (University of Gastronomic Sciences of Pollenzo) and Davide Porporato (University of Eastern Piedmont "Amedeo Avogadro"), entitled "From Orality to Digital: The Granaries of Memory." Finally, the fourth section focuses on experiences in leveraging archival sources for the promotion of the local area, opening with a joint presentation by Stefania Cerutti and Stefania Benetti (University of Eastern Piedmont "Amedeo Avogadro"), entitled "Catalyst of Innovation: TOEP as a Digital Archive for Creative Projects."   Participation in the conference is free.