Alessia Usai

Future research on European Union Cohesion Policy: a Master Class during the OPEN DAYS 2014

In this paper we discuss EU Cohesion Policy, its development over time and prospects for future research. Since the introduction of the EU Cohesion Policy in 1988, its focus has transformed from overcoming regional disparities by developing disadvantaged regions towards economic investment. When Cohesion Policy was subordinated to the Lisbon agenda and subsequently to the Europe 2020 strategy, competitiveness, employment and growth became its primary targets. For 2014–20, a significant share of the €351.8 billion allocated to Cohesion Policy is being ring-fenced to target particular categories of investment in jobs and growth such as research and innovation, small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) competitiveness, the low carbon economy and social inclusion. In the following, we outline five fields that require rethinking and further research.

Towards an Integrated Assessment of the Cultural Ecosystem Services in the Policy-Making for Urban Ecosystems: Lessons from the Spatial and Economic Planning for Landscape and Cultural Heritage in Tuscany and Apulia (IT)

ABSTRACT Scientific literature points out the need for the heritage conservation disciplines to influence the research on the Cultural Ecosystem Services (CES) in urban ecosystems. However, there are still some unclear points in this linkage that our study investigates through a comparative analysis of the integrated planning tools for the landscape and cultural heritage produced by Tuscany and Apulia, the most advanced Italian regions in this field. The paper encourages a debate on the techniques and indicators related to the cultural capital that the policy makers and researchers should consider when implementing the CES assessment for the urban ecosystem planning.

Partnership building strategy in place branding as a tool to improve cultural heritage district’s design. The experience of UNESCO’s mining heritage district in Sardinia, Italy

Purpose – Literature on cultural districts has repeatedly pointed out the role of place branding as a tool to upgrade the image of urban environment as an indicator of meaning and significance. Throughout the case of UNESCO’s mining heritage district in Sardinia (Italy), the purpose of this paper is to investigate on the role that Place Branding Organizations (PBOs) has and/or may have in the construction of coherent images for landscape and cultural heritage in the design of “sustainable” cultural districts in connection with local authorities’ agenda. At this purpose, the authors propose an operative definition of “partnership building strategy” and a new analytic framework to evaluate PBO’s activity within place branding theory. Design/methodology/approach – Considering what recently expressed by UNESCO about the integration between spatial and cultural planning, the authors focus the research on cultural heritage districts protected by this organization. Starting from the definition of strategy propos...