Students have a say on territorial innovation hubs in inner areas

The example of Students Assemblies in Emilia Romagna, Italy

The Student Assembly in Appennino Emiliano was organised as a pilot project with technical assistance of the OECD Open Governance Unit thanks to the European Commission — DG REGIO. This project aimed to show the role that youth can play in defining priorities to leverage territorial development in order to overcome inequalities and promote attractiveness and sustainability. This occurred in the context of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), which is one of the investment instruments of EU Cohesion Policy.

The Appennino Emiliano Mountain and Inner area has been struggling with depopulation — and its consequences — for a number of years now. To combat this, regional authorities developed the Appennino Emiliano Territorial Development Strategy (STAMI) for 2021–2027, which is funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the European Social Fund (ESF+), and they sought to involve youth in defining implementation criteria for the projects as part of this strategy. This project builds on a previous collaboration with OECD and DG REGIO, which resulted in the development and adoption of the Citizen Participation Playbook in Emilia-Romagna.

Local authorities, such as the Union of Municipalities of the Appennino Emiliano Area, have been steering this project through a dedicated Working Group (“tavolo di lavoro”). Both the regional and local authorities partnered with the social cooperative Bangherang, a CSO specialized in involving young people in participatory projects of public interest through non-formal education methods, to facilitate the sessions with the high school students and solicit their input. They selected four classes of the two local high schools to participate in the project and to represent the voice of the youth in the territory. The selection included a pool of students reflecting gender balance, different socio-economic backgrounds, and a diversity of academic specializations.By conducting a series of workshop based on the methodology of the OECD Guidelines for Citizen Participation Processes, the OECD supported the project team, including representatives from the Region, from the Union of Municipalities, and Bangherang in scoping a topic that young people could address, designing the process accordingly and connecting it with the timeframe of the implementation of the STAMI.

The Project

Between October and November 2023, the Student Assembly convened in Castelnovo de’ Monti for a series of participatory activities. The launch event in October gathered students, teachers, public authorities, and the project team for an introduction to the process. The Assembly then held three key meetings. On October 4th, the first plenary session introduced the discussion topics and non-formal education methods to foster familiarity and cooperation among participants. The second meeting on October 18th focused on identifying the needs of young people in the Appennino Emiliano territory, covering areas like Sport, Culture, Leisure, Environment, and Mobility. The third meeting, held on November 8th, focused on formulating actionable proposals and recommendations, based on the needs identified in the previous meeting, for the creation of the thematic Hubs of Territorial Innovation — the “Hub Diffuso” project aimed at regenerating existing facilities to create new spaces for young locals.

The Results

The youth participants identified fourteen areas of need for young people in the Appennino Emiliano territory with a specific focus on the topics covered in the project of the “Hub Diffuso”, Sport, Culture, Leisure, Environment, and Mobility. For each need, they envisioned physical spaces with appropriate facilities and suggested related activities. For example, the proposals on Culture highlighted the need for equipped spaces for group study, as well as spaces dedicated to art exhibitions of young emerging artists. Groups of students working on Leisure pointed out that the Hubs could catalise entertainment events such as concerts, e-sports tournaments, and DJ sets. Finally, students acknowledged the need for spaces and activities dedicated to the discovery of the territory and the actions for the preservation of the environment, such as recycling and upcycling.

Students’ ideas for the Recycling Hub

Lessons Learned

• Engaging with students in schools, and with the process taking place during school hours, lessened logistical and recruitment challenges
• However, the school-based setting excluded youth from other classes — or those not in school — from participating in the process
• More or longer ice-breaking sessions would be useful to counter the unease that some students have felt in openly expressing their ideas in front of their peers without fear of being judged by people they had only just met

The Students Assembly has been, so far, the only pilot project explicitly and exclusively targeting young people in the OECD-DG REGIO “Innovative Implementation of the partnership principle in Cohesion Policy landscape”. The Recommendation of the European Commission on promoting the engagement and effective participation of citizens and civil society organisations in public policy-making processes, adopted in December 2023, pushes Member States to “encourage the participation of children and young people in democratic life in the Union to support their long-term engagement in European democracies as active citizens and vectors of positive transformative change”. This case could inspire other regions across Europe to carve out spaces for youth participation in areas struggling with depopulation — to hear directly from the cohort that authorities are seeking to retain.

by Hana Murr and Giulia Cibrario, OECD Innovative Citizen Participation Team.