Public engagement
(All following links are to Italian pages)
The traditional missions of the University of Torino, focusing on Teaching (First) and Research (Second), have been extended to the so-called Third Mission (English page), which includes Public Engagement.
For the Department of Cultures, Politics and Society, Public Engagement initiatives center on sharing its research and educational activities with the general public, and participating in the co-production of knowledge together with public and private actors in the local area. The objectives are to build strong, lasting bonds with civil society so that getting academic knowledge into the public arena is no longer a one-way street, and increase the Department’s impact, making it a trusted resource for the citizens, associations and institutions of the city and the region.
The Department’s Public Engagement initiatives are showcased in Public Space, which has announced the major events organized since 2019, and on the Department's YouTube channel with its in-depth coverage of major current issues in Italy and around the world: migrations, employment, the war in Ukraine, political participation, and information. Here, the Department brings its multidisciplinary purview to a dialog with civil society to stimulate active and informed citizenship.
The Department and the community
The Department works closely with the area’s major cultural institutions in another instance of how its multidisciplinary vocation enlivens the debate on pressing public issues.
Faculty members and researchers engage on a continual basis with the public in Torino and the surrounding region, both individually as demonstrated by their regular participation in the area’s major cultural events, and in their institutional capacity in collaborations organized by the Department. An example are the initiatives fielded together with the Polo del ‘’900 cultural center and its partner institutions on freedom of expression, the Polis Project on youth activism, and the series of meetings on Pseudocracy and the political lexicon of our times.
Mention should also be made of the regular participation in the groups organizing the city’s major exhibitions and cultural festivals in which the university is involved — the "Salone del Libro" international book fair, the International Festival of Economics, the "Biennale Tecnologia" and the archival heritage festival "Archivissima" — and international initiatives such as GeoNight. Another form of engagement that is proving particularly noteworthy because of the issues considered is the Department’s collaboration with "Biennale Democrazia": during the 2023 edition of the Biennale a panel discussion was organized on the Luigi Einaudi Campus and is available on Public Space.
Topic areas
Recurrent topics addressed in the Department’s Public Engagement initiatives include:
The relationship between the local area and the cultures of the world, pursued through initiatives at the intersection between research about the colonial past, active participation in the migrant community, and studies of the intra and extra European cultural heritage. The Department’s work in this area includes exhibitions and events organized together with the university’s Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography and other local associations and institutions on the Luigi Einaudi Campus and in the city, for example for the "Festival dell’Accoglienza" in 2022, "Black History Month 2023" and "Archivissima 2023".
Department faculty members also participate in other initiatives in Torino, including "Torino Spiritualità" and the "Festival delle migrazioni".
The relationship between the local area, food and the city: several local, national and international research projects “feed” into a set of participatory PE initiatives designed to contribute to local and urban food policies: Nourishing Metropolitan Torino inaugurated along with the metropolitan area’s administration); "PUNTo al cibo: Paesaggi e comunità urbane per Nutrire Torino" (Urban Landscapes and Communities for Nourishing Torino), a network of Torino-area associations; the "Metropolitan Torino Food Atlas" where local institutions—the University of Torino, Torino Polytechnic, the University of Gastronomic Sciences, the Torino Chamber of Commerce, the Piemonte Institute for Social and Economic Research, Urban Lab, City of Torino, Metropolitan City of Torino, and the Piemonte regional administration—have banded together to produce and share information about the area’s food system as the basis for transformational action and policies; the Italian Local Food Policy Network and the latter’s National Observatory for Local Food Policies now being launched through a protocol of understanding involving over thirty Italian universities and research centers.
Participatory mapping of the city: a number of initiatives are carried out together with the Department of Computer Science’s First Life group through TeenCarTo, MAd (Teen Mapping for Urban Renewal) and UniCarTO (Mapping the City’s Food Scene from University Students’ Perspective).
The relationship between the local area and the Luigi Einaudi Campus: through the OMERO interdepartmental urban studies center, the Department is involved in numerous research and PE projects (MOSTEM, for example), exchanging views and co-design ideas about the relationship between the campus, the neighborhood and the city with other local actors in a dialog that has contributed to the urban regeneration initiative for Viale Mario Ottavio Mai.
The relationship between the city and nature: in connection with several research projects (PROGIREG in particular) and in collaboration with other departments, interdepartmental centers (OMERO and ICxT) and Urban Lab, the Department is involved in PE initiatives dealing with the relationship between the city, nature and rivers, and more in general with “water and the local area”, in collaboration with local agencies and the Torino metropolitan area’s administration.
The relationship between the local area and development cooperation: in collaboration with ITC-ILO and interdepartmental centers such as CISAO, the Department plays a key role in public engagement about development cooperation and global citizenship education with actors in the decentralized cooperation system and local partnerships.
Sustainable universities: through initiatives pursued together UniToGO – University Green Office (which the Department helped found, and provides with operational support) and the Italian University Network for Sustainable Development, the Department collaborates in presenting events like Climbing for Climate and educational exhibitions such as Lexicon and Clouds.