Good practice:

Luoghi Comuni

Luoghi Comuni is a recent initiative for youth policies of the Puglia Region and the Regional Agency for Technology and Innovation (ARTI) that finances social innovation projects to be carried out in underutilised public spaces and promoted by regional youth organizations.
Its broad objectives are valorisation of public buildings, development of youth organisations, spread of co-design culture, youth empowerment, social innovation and strengthening of territorial networks.
The key actors are public bodies and non-profit youth organisations. In particular, the first are municipalities, local governments, public universities and public entities who want to enhance their underused assets through social innovation projects. The second are associations and social enterprises based in Puglia, whose managing bodies are composed mostly by young people under 35 years old.
It operates in five steps:
1. A call to public bodies to identify available public spaces;
2. For each space, a call to action towards non-profit youth organizations;
3. Projects evaluation and selection of the best ideas
4. Co-design of the social innovation projects involving the public bodies and the youth organisations;
5. Implementation of the project (duration 2 years), monitoring and payment by results.
Each organisation owner of the social innovation project selected receives a grant of 40.000 Euros for the first 18 month of implementation and the use of the space on a gratuitous loan.

The initiative relies on an a budget of 7 million of Euros needed to finance projects in 175 underused public spaces. All the procedures are managed internally by ARTI with an advanced digital platform and a staff of professionals dealing with administrative, financial and other technical issues.

So far, the initiative registers 84 public spaces available, 126 projects submitted and 61 project selected, of which 41 already activated.
By innovating the administrative procedures, the local resources are better exploited for the good of the community. The public bodies are keen to lower their efforts and risks in the management of the procedures and the young organisations are encouraged to offer their skills and energies in order find solutions matching specific territorial needs.

By starting a similar programme, regions would benefit in terms of urban regeneration and youth activation. A minimum result would be the creation of a catalogue of public spaces available for social activities. But a stronger impact may come from the ideas of young people involved in finding solutions for the tranformation of public spaces into common places open to local communities. Among the indirect effects, young people can strengthen their competences and improve the relationships, leading to new opportunities to develop their projects and career in the region, therefore counteracting brain drain trends.
The practice is monitored through a dedicated evaluating system developed for the measure, which considers five dimensions (Cultural, Social, Economic, Collaborative, Innovation), works with a matrix of specific indicators and collects data with dedicated tools. The experimental monitoring method may be adopted to other policies addressing social innovation objectives.