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DI FALCO

Germana

DI FALCO

Validated Lead Expert

Generic Skills

B.1. Understanding of integrated and sustainable urban development: 
During Doc and Post Doc activities, I started investing on research in Urban Management and Partecipatory Planning as Tools for Integrated and Sustainable Development. As an Adjunt Professor of Public Management, I was the Scientific Coordinator and/or Director of Master Programmes and Capacity Building Transnational Projects aimed at enforcing innovative managerial models for City Administrators and Managers. On behalf of EUROPEAID and of the Italian Ministry of International Affairs, I coordinated several twinning projects with MENA and Eastern Europe Country addressing sustainable urban development. At the moment, I advice the Ministry of Economy, Department of Cohesion and Development Policies, in the design, ex-ante assessment and coordination of the the National Operational Programme for Metropolitan Areas. In the past URBACT programming period, I was contracted as National Trainer and as “ad hoc” expert within USEACT and MY GENERATION AT WORK Networks. I started supporting to Local Authorities and Key Stakeholders in ‘90s, now being more than 15 years that I’m involved in strategic planning in urban and rural areas. I’m in command of facilitation and visioning techniques and coordinate interactive teamworking and consensus-building for an active engagement of Key Stakeholders on urban issues at Trans-national, National, Regional and City Level (recent topics addressed: Metaplanning, Urban Finance, Social Inclusion, Digital Urban Agenda, Crowd-sourcing for Urban Growth)
B.2. Understanding of exchange and learning processes at transnational level: 
As coordinator of several EU projects and Professor and Trainer involved in international Courses and Training Initiatives, I usuallu manage Up-scaling/re-scaling and up-grading of skills, often supported by team-building/management, future visioning and scenario planning in multi-cultural, multi-actor and multi-purpose networks. From the very beginning of my career, I had the opportunity to practice tools and methods applied to exchange and learning processes in transnational cooperation contexts, by adopting PLEF (Personalised Learning and Exchange Frameworks) supported by COPs, Implementation/S Labs, Creativity Hackathons, and Art-Based Inspirational Learning and Exponential Disruptive Training. A personal reflection and investment on Disruptive Training led me, in recent times, to turn-around traditional ways of designing and delivering bench-learning, traditional-way and on-distance as well. With my team, we created an Open-Source interactive tool (Skill Adapter) to profile individual skills, create distributed multi-functional teams and generate individual information and learning paths, by activating inputs from different community-members. This helps both individual success and the adaptation of contents to the different levels of understanding and practices that can be found in transnational partnerships. Visual canvas techniques + gamification are often in my toolkit for wrap-up and take-aways.
B.3. Proficiency in English: 
I currently manage working, reporting and training in English because I usually deal with multi-national teams. The Consultancy Company, whose I’m Senior Partner and CXO, has operational branchs in Italy, Czech Republic, Spain, Bruxelles, Croatia, Romania, Slovenia and Greece. English is the common working language.

Expertise for the design and delivery of transnational exchange and learning activities:

Summary Expertise for the design and delivery of transnational exchange and learning activities: 
It's now more than 20 years I've been thinking, researching, learning and expertimenting disruptive training solutions that can help consenus- and effective team- building and management. I'm a learner and a gamer by myself, with a deep love for professional and stimulating storytelling that can enhance creativity, overpass diversities, identify challenges and co-create solutions. I'm Italian, and this make some difference about the attitude of looking for some beauty to help knowledge generation. Art-based learning, gamification, the use of urban spaces as living learning enviroment is part of our identity and, just recently, a technique for creativity and crowd-sourcing. "Open source intelligence" is another one of my personal mantra. Knowledge derives also by the capability to manage Open Data, Collective Commons and non-formal and informal learning materials. I was an Adjunct Professor of Public Management for more than fifteen years in Bocconi University, Milan. Now I'm a senior adviser and an independent evaluator for EU policies, programmes and projects, many of them addressing training and/or urban/local development, active inclusion, community engagement. Within the URBACT Programme, I was involved as a Trainer in NTS andin the "Empowering Cities" seminar during the URBACT City Festival. Digital Training solutions, Open Interactive Atlas for Contents and a long track record as Coordinator of International Projects certify my passion, not only my expertise.

Thematic expertise:

Theme / Policy: 
Urban Strategic Planning
Summary Thematic expertise: 
As a Professor of Public Management with special interests on local economic development, business-government relations and multi-level policies, Germana matured a long previous experience as advisor for National Governments and Cities, from Italy and Europe mostly, but with connections also with US, China and Eastern Cities. On behalf of the European Parliament, she addressed in the past two years two specific issues: a) how to create an higher impact from multiple programs supporting the quality of urban environment (i.e. LIFE, INTERREG, URBACT, UIA and EARDF/ERDF operations) with a dedicated focus on urban mobility, urban biodiversity and food and water sustainability; b) the application of the Social Progress Index to participatory monitoring and build-up of urban policies, especially considering arts and culture-related initiatives, urban resilience strategies, urban quality. In her approach, the only possible use of public money is to create a multiplier-effect and a practical swing to boost sustainable growth. This is the reason why, in several EU projects that she coordinated in the past years, outputs were generated and designed from the very beginning in order to serve as tools for Open Policy Learning Platform.

Informations

Residence location:
Italy
Languages:
Italian - Mother tongue
Foreign Languages level: 
Foreign languages: 
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Foreign Languages level: 
Foreign languages: 
Email:
germana.difalco@gmail.com

Area of expertise