HAS THE PANDEMIC BOOSTED INNOVATION? URBAN TRANSITIONS AFTER THE COVID TRANSITION

Organizers

Valeria Fedeli, Politecnico di Milano
Camilla Perrone, University of Florence

Contributors

Giovanni Caudo, Università Roma Tre
Flavia Giallorenzo, University of Florence
Marianna D’Ovidio, Università degli Studi di Milano
Anna Moro, Politecnico di Milano
Giulio Giovannoni, University of Florence
Federica Fava, Roma Tre University
Flavio Martella, Roma Tre University

The COVID-19 pandemic created a brand new social, economic, urban environment. Actors, at any scale and nature (public, private, firms, associations...), experienced completely unpredictable contingent situations and indefinite horizons. The fuzziness of the situated exigences was concurrent with the strictness of the policy and laws to limit the spreading of the virus. In the frame of transition studies and the spatial turning literature, the round table discusses what followed the pandemic shock, evidencing hints from case studies and theoretical reflections on transitions. The aim is to debate changes in times of poly-crisis, and if those have the potential for a permanent restructuring of spatial practices and imaginaries. Evidence from case studies at the table will discuss the role of the space in recovery policies with respect to four specific sectors (cultural and leisure activities and tourism; people and goods' mobility; higher education; manufacturing activities), while the theoretical contributions will reflect on (possibly new) roles and approaches in planning theory to deal with the post-pandemic poly-crisis and transitions.

In the frame of a National Interest Research Project (“Plastic or elastic? Exploring the spatialities of post-Covid 19” coordinated by Valeria Fedeli, Politecnico di Milano), the organisers put on the (round) table the following questions:

1. What role have the crises, here namely the pandemic by COVID- 19, in restructuring the relations of people, firms, and institutions with spaces?
2. Do the crisis and the externalities produced by them have an impact on innovation? Which actors and which fields are more responsive in these processes? And if so, which role has the space in prompting or experiencing innovative practices?
3. What is the role of the public in enabling or disabling new relations of actors with the space for boosting innovation? 

Results of the RT will be valorised in the deliverables of the Research Project. Moreover, depending on the interest and results of the discussion, the organisers will draft a theoretical manifesto to challenge Italian policymakers and actors coping with systemic disruptive change by generating collaborative governance of transition space.

Key words: Transition studies, crises, space, governance, innovation