Campanella

Sergio

Campanella

Validated Lead Expert

Generic Skills

B.1. Understanding of integrated and sustainable urban development:

Apart from having been URBACT II Lead and thematic expert, I have solid and proven professional experience: • in planning, coordination and management of EU projects, co-financed by the EU Structural Funds, as well as in the management of inter-territorial, interregional, cross-border and transnational cooperation projects, concerning integrated and sustainable urban development; • in the management of 4 to 15 people working teams in the coordination of technical management, assistance, involving teams and other professionals (URBAN I and II, URBACT I, II and III), with excellent working ability in teams and with remarkable multilingual relational and editorial mastery; • in the field of planning, programming and socio-economic animation techniques of urban and vast area spatial sustainable development policies, with an excellent knowledge in management of inter-urban, integrated and sustainable development and transnational and cross-border cooperation; I have got extensive knowledge and long practical experience in the management of urban "quintuple helix" governance tools, as well as recognised competences at regional, national, international levels, in the conception, planning, and management of sustainable spatial development in urban-rural areas, also thanks to the considerable experience gained in Europe and outside EU (Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Turkey), as a project designer and an expert, acknowledged by the EU in spatial/urban planning.

B.2. Understanding of exchange and learning processes at transnational level:

Used to an innovative pedagogical approach to delivering a vision and an interested involvement towards the working groups that I co-ordinate, I have long-standing practice of university and post-university (masters) specialising teaching, as well as practice to animate exchange and learning processes towards public and private spheres, cognitive institutions, organised and unorganised civil society in the “on-the-job” application of participatory method, along with extensive multilevel analysis of the integrated approach and in the management of forms of PPP (Public-Private Partnership) co-operation, always according to logics of an integrated and sustainable approach. I have organised various transnational exchanges and planning-workshop events in different EU and extra-EU cities, facilitating exchange and transferring knowledge by several training sessions, coordinating and implementing different participatory dynamics: World Café, De Bono's Hats, TDSP, EASW, with particular regard to CLLD animation processes, and to those dialogue practices that promote the transmission and evolution of stakeholders’ ideas. In such processes, my role of facilitator has led to the identification of recurring patterns of local development, the growth of collective knowledge and the emergence of new opportunities for empowerment and action, planning in a fully co-working atmosphere, from URBAN to URBACT, Support for Cities, Knowledge Transfer Kit, ENPARD and also favouring social innovation.

B.3. Proficiency in English:

All the transnational activities of my 24 years experience required proficient knowledge of oral and written English, with the production of reports, articles, case studies, newsletters, thematic dossiers, meetings animation and so on: I worked in networks interacting in English with large groups of people, in multicultural environments, with various roles of guidance and coordination and very oriented to problem-solving and creativity solutions and elaborations, thanks to my communicative and reporting skills in English. Over the past 24 years I have coordinated, organised and managed in English dozens of working groups in various EU projects of different financial dimensions, and I have also been a successful coordinator of dozens of European cross-border and transnational cooperation projects, each involving 4 to 12 EU and non-EU partnership delegations. I was also Lead and thematic expert for URBACT II, Sounding Board expert for ESPON, member of the Cross-Cutting Thematic Working Group on "Adapting Public Services to Integrated Policies", as well as of the Cross-Cutting Thematic Working Group on "Citizens Participation in the Public Decision-making Process", under URBACT I; I was expert for the URBACT Secretariat under the "Knowledge Transfer Kit" Programme in Sweden and Italy; and, always for the URBACT Secretariat, I was "EU standard Urban Planning" expert under the "Support for Cities" Programme. My excellent knowledge of other 4 EU languages is a strategic asset.

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:

I have a solid, long experience in the design, organisation, leading, advising, management of many transnational projects using participatory dynamics with ULGs made by stakeholders of the quintuple helix, allowing to co-decide/share city strategies and LAPs showing potential for sustainable integration, social inclusion, exchange and transfer of good practices/lessons learnt. I ever try to adapt methods, techniques, tools and to apply participatory dynamics alternated/intertwined with each other (also due to my 18 years experience in teaching at university/postgraduate masters), where people engage to build their LAP and to efficiently manage, monitor, self-evaluate it. My capacities of listening, leading, animating, favouring consensus, have always led to produce the expected outputs in time. As coordinator and Lead expert I have shaped plenty of events for transnational E&L, favouring empowerment to get smart, sustainable and inclusive planning; and produced many reports, thematic papers, case studies, guidance manuals, articles, handbooks, booklets, fact sheets, compendia which have proved to be fundamental to support the exchange of experiences /knowledge at transnational level. Recommendations, cues, suggestions directed towards peers, decision makers, researchers, practitioners are some of the results giving a good help in their empowerment path. I have always communicated complex concepts to anglophone and non-English audiences ever involving their full attention.

Thematic expertise:

Theme / Policy:

Urban Strategic Planning

Summary Thematic expertise:

Having started with the design and management of 2 URBAN operational programmes, and got on with several spatial plans for city groups and urban-rural feedback, during the last 24 years I have applied and implemented topics as Urban strategic planning, Integrated urban renewal, Local governance, Local economic development, Entrepreneurship and competitive SMEs, Environmental issues. All my professional background is focused on the added value to develop these issues and encourage feedback in urban/rural areas. I have also been engaged as project expert /advisor, plus 18 years experience in university teaching both in degree courses and post-graduate masters on local development and territorial innovation (Universities of Alicante/Oviedo). I have produced thematic inputs useful to feed in the learning process at transnational level: e.g., reports, briefings and position papers produced in the ambit of the two Cross-Cutting Thematic Working Groups on "Adapting Public Services to Integrated Policies" and on "Citizens Participation in the Public Decision-making Process", where I was Management Board member under URBACT I; under the "Knowledge Transfer Kit" for Sweden and Italy; or as "EU standard Urban Planning" Expert under "Support for Cities"; as Lead expert under URBACT II; or as Sounding Board expert under ESPON. I have been active producer of many reports integrating good practices and policy messages for city practitioners and policy-makers for capitalisation purposes.

Theme / Policy:

Integrated Urban Renewal

Summary Thematic expertise:

Theme / Policy:

Local Governance

Summary Thematic expertise:

Theme / Policy:

Local Economic Development

Theme / Policy:

Entrepreneurship and competitive SMEs

Theme / Policy:

Environmental Issues

Expertise support to local authorities and other stakeholders in designing & delivering integrated and participatory policies

E.1. Knowledge on participatory methods and tools for co-production and implementation of local polices :

With the Medint project, I created and coordinated, for the first time in the URBACT Programme, urban local support groups (urban forums) in each partner city for the implementation of a participatory integrated planning. As LE of the Urban NOSE project (URBACT II) I coordinated participatory dynamics of all the partner cities’ ULSGs for production and delivery of specific LAPs. As local coordinator in the Volunteering Cities project (URBACT III) I am coordinating an ULG to activate good practices transfer and LAP co-design. I used the same activities of application of participatory methods and tools also to design a SECAP, Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plan under the Covenant of Mayors; as well as in the construction of an urban-rural territorial strategy and the implementation of a LAP for the EU ENPARD Pilot Action Programme. I am very used to favour and stimulate those dialogue practices to promote the transmission and evolution of stakeholders' ideas, being actors and parts of a whole (cross-pollination). My role of facilitator has led to the identification of local development patterns, collective knowledge and emergence of new opportunities for empowerment and action, sharing and planning together by using participatory tools and dynamics to overcome problems and achieve goals, according to logics of co-decision and social innovation processes including conflict resolution, mediation of interests, care towards diversities, attention to inclusive dynamics, etc.

E.2. Knowledge on integrated approach for the design, delivering, monitoring and evaluation of urban strategies/policies:

In URBACT Medint I developed a system of indicators that measure and balance the levels of integration among the environmental, social, economic, infrastructural, cultural and ethical-political spheres for a sustainable urban planning. I have applied other monitoring tools in URBACT II as Lead expert, in ESPON as Sounding Board expert and in ENPARD for spatial planning; I am very used to design and use physical, financial, implementation, result and impact indicators in a series of LAPs, SECAP and other sustainable, participated spatial planning instruments. Through a continuous feedback with partners for quarterly financial monitoring and six-months physical monitoring, I am able to communicate project status and possible changes in order to keep partners and team members up to date: to have effective feedback is quite important to be able to implement preventive or corrective actions to bring the project into compliance with the management plan. As project manager I always created project plans and assigned the tasks to team members using common monitoring tools: indeed, apart from possibilities of using common Planning Software, I have always relied on classical tools like the on-going, intermediate reporting, as I believe that a good project monitoring is about providing the tool /techniques that enable the entire project team to organise their work to measure progress of physical/financial indicators, thus fully achieving project objectives and delivering outputs.

E.3. Awareness of the main policy and funding schemes for sustainable urban development at EU and national level:

My updating activity about sustainable urban development policies, trends and funds is based on the periodic consultation of portals and websites, as well as specialised documents of international, EU, national and regional level; only to name a few just by way of example, I find important to report at least the following: https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/en/policy/themes/urban-development/ https://ec.europa.eu/info/eu-regional-and-urban-development/topics/cities-and-urban-development/funding-cities_en https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/en/policy/themes/urban-development/portal/ https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/en/information/publications/brochures/2016/sustainable-urban-development-in-the-eu https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/en/policy/themes/urban-development/network/ http://urbact.eu/cities-article-7-planning-implementing-and-funding http://urbact.eu/sites/default/files/04_sustreg-web.pdf https://www.espon.eu/ https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/urbandevelopment/overview https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/ https://theurbandeveloper.com/ https://www.nlc.org/ https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ http://www.oecd.org/ www.forumpa.it/tag/politiche-urbane https://www.urbanit.it/ http://www.cittalia.it/ http://www.inu.it/ https://www.euroinfosicilia.it/po-fesr-sicilia-2014-2020

E.4. Ability to understand specific local situations and adapt tools and content to different local realities:

I have been used to working in very different contexts from a social and cultural, economic and environmental point of view. My firm respect for diversity /enhancement of the different local situations have always inspired me methods /tools for adapting risks into opportunities and weaknesses in added value for the participatory development of local urban /territorial policies. I have benefited from my long experience in URBAN, TERRA, URBACT, PIT, PRUSST, LEADER, ESPON, ENPI CBC, ENPARD and other national and transnational programmes, in order to adapt, remodel and apply participative /sustainable methods, tools, policies of urban development in the most diverse transnational contexts, both in Europe and outside EU, always favouring and obtaining highly participated planning and the adoption of truly sustainable policies. These adaptation capacities aimed at ensuring maximum consistency in the planning and delivery of integrated and participatory policies can be inferred from the management of Medint in URBACT I, then continued with the Urban NOSE Lead expertise in URBACT II; but also the experiences I realised, e.g., with the expertise in AttReg (ESPON) or Umayyad (ENPI CBC Mediterranean Basin) which demonstrate my ability to design and model participatory, sustainable tailor-made policies based on real local needs and to foster at transnational level local empowerment, inclusive /conscious planning, always including contents of socioeconomic/environmental innovation.

Summary Expertise:

With the Medint project, I created and coordinated, for the 1st time in the URBACT I, urban forums for a participatory integrated planning. As LE of the Urban NOSE project (URBACT II) I coordinated participatory dynamics of ULSGs for production /delivery of LAPs. As local coordinator in "Volunteering Cities" (URBACT III) I am coordinating an ULG for good practices transfer and LAP co-design. In URBACT Medint I developed a system of indicators that measure and balance the levels of integration among the environmental, social, economic, infrastructural spheres for a sustainable urban planning. I have applied monitoring tools in URBACT II as Lead expert, in ESPON as Sounding Board expert and in ENPARD spatial planning; and I am used to design and apply physical, financial, implementation, result, impact indicators in a series of LAPs, SECAP or other spatial planning instruments. My updating activity about sustainable urban development policies, trends and funds is based on the periodic consultation of portals, websites and revues of international/EU/national/regional level. I have been used to work in very different contexts and my firm respect for diversity and enhancement of the local differencies have always inspired me methods /tools for adapting risks into opportunities and weaknesses in added value. My long experience in URBAN, TERRA, URBACT, LEADER, ESPON, ENPI CBC, ENPARD and other transnational programmes, let me adapt/remodel/apply urban development tools/policies.