Objectives and Methodology of the Master course
The main objective of the program is to allow students of all nationalities with different qualifications, to provide answers on the basis of unconventional, innovative, creative, integrated approaches (technical, professional, academic and human) with respect to the issues of urban and regional development.
From the course’s eleventh edition on (2013) the students will have the possibility to interact with the Centro Studi Dante Bighi and with the iniciatives promoted inside the program “Città della Cultura/Cultura della Città” about themes related to management and organization of cultural events and manifestations, with the goal of creating during the workshop in Italy a prototype of cultural event.
Students and Teachers of the Eco-Polis course experience each time:
- the possible answers to local problems,
- the direct actions within specific communities, in Italy or abroad (see in this respect the books, videos and photographs on this site),
- the assessment on the best tools and technologies to be proposed and used.
Since the eleventh edition of the Master (2013), students will have the opportunity to interact with the School of Design and Management of Temporary Cultural Events. The school, run by Re.CoDe (School of Creative Actions for Community Development) and the Centro Studi Dante Bighi, will permit to the Eco-Polis students to participate directly in the formulation, design, implementation and management of at least one event of the 2013 calendar of the cultural program ‘Città della Cultura/Cultura della Città’ (City of Culture / Culture of the City).
The student of Eco-Polis learns the method with which to formulate and deliver innovative solutions, sustainable, workable in local contexts (which are not all the same). He will learn socially shared solutions, as well as:
- Tackle a specific problem within a teamwork,
- Act as a group within a community, a city, a territory,
- How to evaluate the best solutions, both in terms of tools and technologies to be used,
- How to manage the processes of participation and stimulation of the actors that characterize the context (citizens, businesses and institutions).
In particular the method of Eco-Polis directs the students to the use of different tools for the rapid definition of the context and for the identification of possible solutions, such as:
- Analysis and readings for the characterization of the spatial (social, economic, cultural) structures,
- Proposals for strategic planning,
- Policies, Plans, programs and projects,
- Concrete events: seminars, boot-camps, cultural events.
This is not a pragmatic approach exclusively imagined and touted with expensive marketing tools. Our consistency is demonstrated by:
- 10 editions of the master course,
- almost 30 workshops in Italy, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Easter Island, Mexico and Uruguay,
- the many companies that support us and work with our events,
- local and supra-national institutions and companies that cover the organizational costs of our workshops (accomodation and transportations for students and teachers) since 2007.
