Results and Impact
The Department maintains numerous collaborations with various public entities across the Florentine and Tuscan areas. Given its strategic orientation toward deepening the study of democratic transformations, the Department fosters relationships with diverse stakeholders and audiences in order to:
- Promote education for democracy and the development of civic awareness;
- Support local communities in democratic participation processes;
- Play an active role in training local government administrators, public officials, and practitioners from representative and non-profit associations in the democratic management of political processes;
- Strengthen relationships with non-academic partners;
- Encourage reflection on the issues surrounding democratic transformations;
- Enhance and improve institutional communication activities.
Specifically, in recent years the Department has launched scientific outreach, training, research, and action-research projects involving schools, continuing education providers, and public administrations.
With the 2020–2024 VQR (Research Quality Assessment) exercise, the National Agency for the Evaluation of Universities and Research Institutes (ANVUR) introduced the concept of Knowledge Valorization, aimed at promoting "the contribution of Institutions to the development of society and the local territory, fostering dialogue among Institutions, businesses, and civil society" and the creation of "innovative practices and synergies between research and economic, territorial, environmental, and cultural development" (from the ANVUR website).
In particular, public engagement refers to the non-profit set of activities aimed at a non-academic audience, possessing educational, cultural, and societal development value, through which the Department communicates the benefits of education and research findings.
This category includes all initiatives designed to disseminate knowledge beyond academic boundaries to engage a non-expert audience in close collaboration with society and the local community:
- Organization of cultural activities of public utility (e.g., concerts, theatrical performances, film festivals, artistic performances, sports events, exhibitions, and other events open to the community);
- Scientific outreach (e.g., media and products dedicated to non-academic audiences, radio and television broadcasts);
- Multimedia outreach (e.g., blogs and other social media channels for scientific communication and outreach, excluding the institutional website, as well as the publishing and management of websites);
- Initiatives for proactive citizen engagement in research and innovation, including efforts to promote the dissemination and implementation of research and innovation results in society to reduce inequalities and discrimination (e.g., debates, science festivals, science cafés, online consultations, citizen science, legal clinics);
- Activities for engagement and interaction with schools (e.g., experiments, simulations, educational games and other workshop activities, citizenship education).
Among the recent Public Engagement activities of the DSPS:
- Election Nights 2022 | 2024
- US2024 Election Breakfast
- Debate with candidates for the European Parliament – What do EU think?
- Participation in ScienzEstate at the Social Sciences Campus 2023 | 2024
- Participation in the UniFI Green Week 2024
- Initiatives on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women 2024
- 150th Anniversary of the "Cesare Alfieri" School of Political Sciences
DSPS Publications
Last update
17.09.2026