NEB-2025-01-PARTICIPATION-01

Through our work, we have collaborated with public administrations, NGOs, private entities, and informal groups, facilitating connections among these diverse actors to foster social innovation in urban contexts. In particular, our experience in Milan—through projects such as Città dei Giovani, Scuola dei Quartieri, and Open Casello—has offered us an integrated case study. These initiatives have helped us develop a mapping of spaces, practices, and active stakeholders across the city.

Within this framework, common spaces clearly emerge as pivotal elements. We are especially interested in deepening our understanding of how the surrounding communities we have mapped contribute to making these spaces vibrant, inclusive, and safe—turning them into places of innovation. At the same time, we aim to explore how these spaces themselves can act as catalysts, giving rise to new formal and informal networks that shape and animate the life of the city.

This ongoing work aligns closely with the objectives of the Horizon call, and we are eager to contribute to a broader comparative study across European contexts, bringing insights from Milan’s urban regeneration efforts and community-led spatial practices.

About
Avanzi – Sostenibilità per Azioni SB S.p.A. is an independent company that has been promoting change for sustainability through social innovation. For over twenty-five years, Avanzi has facilitated processes of social and environmental innovation in areas such as urban regeneration, local development, housing policies, social cohesion and integration, creativity and culture, personal services, innovative welfare, agriculture, tourism and land stewardship, circular economy, sustainable finance, and trading.