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Observatory PASCAL
Place Management, Social Capital and Learning Regions PURE Regional Briefing Paper (RBP) PUGLIA, ITALY Part 1 1. Clarify what is meant by the region in this project e.g. historical and cultural, long-term administrative and legal, or specially created for a particular development purpose. Comment on the advantages and difficulties of the nature and understanding of the region involved. [One general benefit from the PURE project should be to gain a better understanding of what kind of region is effective for what purposes.] The Puglia Region, through PURE, aims at achieving 3 main goals: a) Verifying the validity of its work in terms of LLL and learning through participation process and through an exchange of ideas with the other PURE partners (regions and cities) on the latest best practices. b) Establishing long-lasting and productive relationships with the HEIs as to the third mission and, in general, to LLL and learning through participation. c) Having an exchange with other PURE regions on governance and political-bureaucratic functions of administrative apparatus, to foster a better understanding and a continuous learning within its organization. 2. Set out briefly the key characteristics of the region in terms of geography, economy, demography, social structure, trends and changes, as these affect PURE and the development agenda. The main interest of the Region, as indicated in BP4, is to engender a process of empowerment in community and young generation learning competences. The Puglia Region is convinced that territorial social economic cultural development can be achieved only by allowing young people to express their creativity. This result can be obtained through a deeper awareness from the young of their role and responsibility and an increased listening ability from the Public administration. The initiatives carried out by the Puglia Region, mentioned in BP4 (Transparency, Youth policies, territory planning), work in this direction and it is hoped that, thanks to PURE, the HEI system could be more involved along these lines. 3. Identify and draw together a reference list of the main data sources available on the socio-economic, environmental, etc. condition of the region, and recent trends. http://www.sistema.puglia.it http://www.regione.puglia.it http://www.arti.puglia.it http://www.osservatoriosocialepuglia.it http://151.2.170.110/ecologia http://www.viaggiareinpuglia.it/hp/en http://pugliattiva.regione.puglia.it http://bollentispiriti.regione.puglia.it Unfortunately the majority of the data sources are available only in Italian.
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Place Management, Social Capital and Learning Regions 4. Summarise any existing efforts to monitor and benchmark progress against purposes and targets. Please comment on any interest in and pressure for the measurement of quality and outcomes, including value for money auditing, that you are aware of in the region. [It is hoped that the project will assist an understanding of what kinds of indicators and quantitative measures of regional development and the contribution of HEIs to this work and are useful.] The Puglia Region doesn’t have specific monitor and benchmark tools to measure HEIs contribution to regional development. It would be of great interest and utility to have such tools, mainly to measure the university 3rd mission contribution. This would make the relationship between these 2 different institutions more productive and measurable. 5. List the main existing forms of collaboration between HEIs and the region. You may need to consider the region as a single administrative entity, but also note and include more localized and specialized significant HEI partnerships with other stakeholders - public, private, and NGO or third sector. Many are the formal partnerships between the Region and Universities. These are codified by general formal agreements at central level and specific agreements between single university department and single regional sector. These agreements are more effective and give tangible results but they often lack a unitary vision and a central strategic coordination. Similar is the situation with stakeholders. 6. If there are any examples of good practice in HEI-regional engagement that you think of special interest, perhaps for inclusion later in a PURE Good Practice Manual, please make a note of them to call to the attention of the CDG. With reference to the mentioned objectives and approaches, we submit two different cases: a) A lab on environmental education (www.mea-lab.org), an initiative of the University of Bari to establish an itinerant lab on sustainability directly managed by students. The lab tries to involve and sensitize schools through participation processes of students and their families. b) Territorial planning Lab to share knowledge for a common governance. The lab has included about 300 people from different origins: professional individuals, professional studies, associations.
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Place Management, Social Capital and Learning Regions Part 2 1. What are: 1.1 The main problems and challenges Economic issues:  How to develop innovation, research, Information Society.  Internationalization and cooperation. Social issues including health:  Young Brain drainage.  Social security and family poverty.  Teenagers school abandonment.  Gender gap in employment. Environmental issues:  Strong pollution in some densely industrialized areas.  Soil erosion and pollution due to extensive agriculture production. Cultural issues:  Promoting the diffusion of local art, cinema and theatre production.  Promoting tourism. Other issues or dimensions:  Promoting ethics in politics and administrative processes.  Promoting participation in building public policies.  Supporting a new idea of managing the territory with active citizens involvement. 1.2 The main development aspirations that are shared by stakeholders in the region? Puglia aspires to become an “open” and competitive Region with a focus on technological development as a means to improve its social economic assets and to have a more even wealth distribution. Development planning has been defined for about 15 years according to communitary rules and indications. The planning tool is the “Strategic Regional Document” where strategies, priorities and interventions are listed. For the last period of communitary funds programming, Puglia has adopted a new way of planning, involving single citizens and associations, besides the classical stakeholders suggested by EU, in defining priorities and related interventions. Despite the very innovative bottom up process, recognized also by the EU, awareness and participation is often confined to e active citizens. The Next effort is to enlarge the basis of participation using different tools, never tested before. Please consider the full spectrum of civil, economic, social, cultural, and environmental factors, including issues of sustainability, where these apply. In particular, what impact is the current global financial and economic crisis – and the global environmental crisis (global warming etc) - having on your thinking and long-term planning as a region and different stakeholders? What has really altered (or is changing) in your policy planning since one year ago?
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Place Management, Social Capital and Learning Regions For the time being the political agenda hasn’t been deeply modified. Many initiatives have been carried out to face the international crisis more as a momentary phenomenon than a structural one, in the general belief that it is a “bolt out of the blue”. The consequence is that choices, at regional and local level, are mainly made in the medium term (3-10 years) instead of in the long one (20-50 years) when not in the very short term (6 months - 1 year). Within this scenario only some initiatives stand out for their far-sighted ability of international exchange and debate such as the G-local Youth for Sustainable Development conference, organized by Puglia Region, in November 2009. See the website: http://bollentispiriti.regione.puglia.it/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=371&I emid=116) 2. What are the main changes that are looked for in taking part in PURE: The Puglia Region aims at:  Improving its organisational performance mainly with regards to a possible change in the present distinction between political and technical roles played within the organisation. It is hoped that the exchange of experience with other PURE regions could give some concrete suggestions and hints to improve this aspect.  Developing further initiatives for human capital growth and young potential use.  Involving the HEI system more effectively in human capital development and, more generally, in regional community social development. 2.1 2.2 For the region as a whole, and for particular communities and interests within it? Within and on the part of higher education institutions i.e. sought by the HEIs themselves, and looked for by other stakeholders from HEIs? The Puglia Region encourages any kind of relationship and partnership with different institutions of the territory. The Region has made the effort to involve all the stakeholders and all the citizens in the initiatives carried out over the past years. Unfortunately, University seems to be distant as to participation process but it is hoped that PURE could be of some help in modifying the present situation. 2.3 In terms of how regional and local government are managed? Improving participation and involvement processes so as to encourage local governments to modify their approach and role to make participation and active citizenship more valuable. 2.4 In terms of the role and policies of central government? For the time being we do not think our taking part in PURE can have any effect on central government policies.
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Place Management, Social Capital and Learning Regions 3. What key issues do you wish to discuss with the CDG when it visits your region? The ones already mentioned in BP4.  Participation as a method of learning.  Methods for the integration of local development main actors: companies, institutions, research centres etc.  Support of human capital with reference to the full development of youth potential.  Acquisition of a better referenced framework for the Third mission, so as to propose it in our region.
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