Design as a policy competency: Training policy makers at ANCI Toscana (in Italian)

Speakers meeting link: https://bit.ly/36uVRwF | Meeting attendants: Facebook live at https://www.facebook.com/designscapesproject/

17:00-17:15 Welcome and introduction
(Alberto Magni, TUD)
17:15-17:45 Presentation of the Train-The-Trainer process carried out at ANCI Toscana
(Federico Rita)
17.45-18:15 The perspective of policy makers at ANCI Toscana, examples of impact in their practice
(Besnik Mehmeti, Elena Conti and other members of ANCI Toscana)
18.15-18.30 Q&A
18:30 End

Our speakers

Alberto Magni is a design researcher with a background in industrial design, a bachelor’s degree in product design at Università degli Studi di Ferrara (Italy) and a Master’s degree in Design for Interaction at the Delft University of Technology (The Netherlands). Parallel to his Master’s he followed the Honours Programme Master, conducting research on the capacity building benefits of participatory design processes. In his Master’s thesis, conducted within the European research project DESIGNSCAPES, Alberto focused on introducing a reflective approach and process to support the self-directed capacity building of urban innovation initiatives. His work led him to continue working in the DESIGNSCAPES project as researcher, joining the Delft Design Lab Participatory City Making at the Delft University of Technology (TUDelft). His work has been focused on the development of DESIGNSCAPES capacity building program – a training and guiding program offered to selected design-enabled innovation initiatives around Europe – where he combined research and design activities with the goal to better understand how to support the development and scaling of design-enabled urban innovation in and across cities.

Federico Rita is a design researcher committed to Design for Social Innovation and Design for Policy. Master’s degree in Design for Interaction at the Delft University of Technology (NL), he is a PhD student in Design at Politecnico di Milano (IT). His MSc graduation project, titled “Design as a new policy competency. A learning environment for capacity-building in public management”, was conducted within the European research project DESIGNSCAPES. The purpose of his work was to investigate strategies to strengthen public management and policymaking by exploring the potential of Design Thinking as a policy competency. A design capacity-building process has been initiated and carried out as part of a design challenge to co-create a learning environment for design capabilities.

Besnik Mehmeti has a distinguished expertise and a winning track record in securing and managing EU funded projects. He provides strategic advisory and funding opportunities to local and regional administrators, communities and businesses. His core areas are the promotion of innovation, technological development, entrepreneurship, creative and cultural industries. His ability to master complex and multilateral partnerships and initiatives led to the successful development and implementation of several innovative actions and partnerships at local and regional level.

Elena Conti

In this session we discuss the train-the-trainer process set up and carried out by TUDelft with regional managers and policy makers at ANCI Toscana, aimed at building design-enabled innovation capacity in their practice as policy makers.

After presenting the train-the-trainer activities carried out in ANCI, we will have a conversation with the members of ANCI who took part in the process, to learn more about the impact of such an approach.