Learning Practice in Urban Development

BARLETTA, Puglia, ITALY

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

PROJECT TITLE Bollenti Spiriti – Urban Laboratories – Giovani Open Space Case study title: Old buildings make way for young entrepreneurs Beneficiary City of Barletta / Prometeo Social Cooperative Duration of project The Bollenti Spiriti (‘High Spirits’) programme started in 2006 and is ongoing. It includes the Laboratori Urbani (‘Urban Laboratories’) action, which started in March 2006 and is still ongoing. This in turn contains the local project Giovani Open Space – GOS (‘Youth Open Space’). GOS was launched in 2008 by the Municipality of Barletta with the signature of the contract with the region, and lasted 34 months. In March 2011 the managing organisation started the public activities of GOS. The management of the structure is contracted to an NGO for 5 years, of which the first is fully grant-aided. Member State MS: Italy, Region: Puglia, City: Barletta Geographic size Bollenti Spiriti is a regional programme for the territory of Puglia (NUTS 2). The region has a polycentric structure with a large number of medium-sized cities, mainly of between 30 000 and 100 000 inhabitants The local project analysed is in the Municipality of Barletta with a population of 94 140 (functional urban area 161 000). Funding Since 2006, the Bollenti Spiriti programme has managed a public investment of over €120 million, with a mix of national (FAS and various framework agreements) and EU funds. The national FAS (Underdeveloped Areas Fund) is implemented jointly with the ERDF under the National Strategic Framework.1 The FAS finances the Bollenti Spiriti action Laboratori Urbani, which includes the project GOS Barletta. GOS Barletta’s spending is €1 760 000, of which: regional funds from Bollenti Spiriti programme: €700 000 (40%) and Municipality of Barletta: €1 060 000 (60%). Operational Puglia OP, CCI no.: 2007IT161PO010, Priority 7: Competitiveness and programme attractiveness of cities and urban systems. Managing Authority Presidenza della Giunta Regionale – Area di Coordinamento delle Politiche Comunitarie Cohesion Policy Convergence Objective: Main reason for The Bollenti Spiriti programme is an example of the integration of different Highlighting this actions distributed across the Puglia region, with a strong multi-sectoral case approach, that appears to be innovative in terms of the overall mobilisation of actions and projects related to youth. The programme demonstrated a high capacity to develop participative practices of community-led development that appear innovative in the regional administration of Puglia. Through Bollenti Spiriti the public administrations promoted local development valuing the endogenous resources of the young population of the region. Since 2006, in a relatively short time, Bollenti Spiriti has been able to mobilise a great number of young people, associations and municipalities and to trigger a network of cultural facilities and projects supporting creativity as a resource for the region.

1 Laboratori Urbani has not been directly financed by the ERDF but by the FAS (Fondo per le Aree Sottoutilizzate – Underdeveloped Areas Fund) which falls within the same unified National Strategic Framework, and whose certification procedures are unified with those of the ERDF.

The programme has been able to enhance territorial cohesion by creating cultural and social centres in almost all the small and medium cities of the region, aiming to reinforce inclusion capacity in both territorial and social terms. The programme has several thematic actions and this case study focuses on the one called Laboratori Urbani (‘Urban Laboratories’ – ULs) to which several city-based projects belong. The project Giovani Open Space of Barletta is currently among the most advanced examples. Key Contact person Marco Ranieri [email protected] for the Bollenti Spiriti programme Ferdinando Di Cesare [email protected] for the GOS project Keywords/Tags Policy for youth, integrated programmes, employment, participation, urban regeneration.

1. PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Overall objective / Bollenti Spiriti is a programme of the Puglia Region, Department of goals Transparency and Active Citizenship, aimed at youth empowerment. Although directed by a sectoral programme for youth, it is explicitly conceived as an integrative initiative, pursuing the aim of networking different experiences in the territory, opening up space for social, cultural and educational initiatives, endorsing the entrepreneurial and creative potential of young generations. It creates a participative network of young actors and projects, supported by the smart use of social media to amalgamate the multiple stakeholders into a dynamic community covering the whole region and fostering synergy among the projects. This case study focuses on the Urban Laboratories (ULs) action, which is engendering participative urban development and territorial regeneration. ULs’ objective is to renovate disused public buildings to be transformed into new cultural centres and public spaces devoted to youth creativity. It is conceived as an infrastructure programme covering the whole region to provide facilities for cultural activity, education and training for young people, with the aim of supporting a creative local development. The region issued a call open to all the municipalities to identify unused buildings in their territory, and funded a twofold goal. First, the physical regeneration of the building, managed by the technical offices of the local administration; second, a public call for a local organisation to manage the public facilities. The latter will be contracted for five years, grant-aided with a start-up contribution for the first year (€140 000), and with the aim that the projects should be self-supporting in the medium term. The project analysed is the Giovani Open Space (GOS) in Barletta, part of a brownfield area – a former distillery – in a disadvantaged neighbourhood with strategic potential, on which a PRU (Urban Regeneration Plan) is in force. In spring 2012 the GOS has just ended its first year of public activity. Description of The Bollenti Spiriti programme is structured around many interrelated actions activities that coordinate a broad range of youth-based activities. The main actions are:  Principi Attivi (PA) which directly finances ‘good ideas’ proposed by youth associations and groups  Libera il Bene (LiB) which redevelops properties confiscated from the mafia for social purposes  Laboratori Urbani or Urban Laboratories – ULs Within the ULs the GOS local project in Barletta has two main activity lines: - On one hand, activity centres on musical production, providing a recording studio, a rehearsal room and an auditorium. GOS organises music courses, concerts and events. A complete production studio for music recording is available, and the project foresees the creation of a music label.

- On the other hand, a large amount of training takes place, including courses in theatrical tailoring, theatre, music recording and video editing as well as professional training for real estate agents, gardeners etc. In 2011 GOS has organised a summer school for participative planning, which will be repeated next summer focusing on the of the ex-distillery areas, as part of the objective of contributing to a participative regeneration process of the area. Recipients The main recipients of Bollenti Spiriti are the young people and youth organisations of the Puglia region. In the case of GOS, young people enjoy the educational, training and recreational offerings of the centre. The Prometeo Social Cooperative, which was already active in the region as the manager of lifelong learning activities and professional training for disadvantaged individuals, benefits from a facility for educational activities, which forms part of the network of employment actions that the region has set up. The Municipality of Barletta receives substantial support in developing the Urban Regeneration Plan, including through innovative methodology and procedures. Citizens at large benefit from a new cultural facility, and the potential of the project to trigger the regeneration of the entire neighbourhood. Mainstreaming of The programme does not take the mainstreaming of gender equality and non- gender equality and discrimination explicitly into account; however the calls conform to the national non-discrimination rules and follow non-discriminatory principles. In general the approach of the programme is deeply inclusive, open and transparent, which has resulted in the wide participation of young people without any apparent exclusion of discriminated groups or genders. Furthermore, the social activity of many projects, in particular those promoted by the Libera il Bene programme, is targeted at disadvantaged categories. Intended outputs At Bollenti Spiriti programme level, to foster opportunities at large for the and results young generation by providing local facilities, training and networking, improving significantly the possibility of contributing to regional development. The Laboratori Urbani action aims specifically to create a network of cultural facilities managed at local level which can support the young generation’s needs for cultural space and creative practices, and to create employment. At project level, the regeneration of an old distillery in Barletta has a significant aim in fostering the integrated regeneration of a part of the city which is cut off from the centre by the railway and is affected by a lack of social infrastructure. The project is also a significant deliverable among the PRU actions. Increasing the employability of local youth is an additional foreseen result. 2. POLITICAL AND STRATEGIC CONTEXT National and Puglia is a southern region with a large gap in economic and social terms regional framework compared to other Italian regions. The strategic vision for regional develop- for implementing ment aims to support a balanced network of medium-sized cities devoted to ERDF funded urban SMEs, following the general decline of big industry. Since the 90s the region development has made a great effort to reform its governance and planning tools in the light projects of decentralisation, subsidiarity and alignment with European policy. Neverthe- less, the region is still affected by a structural difficulty in fully exploiting EU funds, given institutional slowness and complicated planning procedures. In Italy, the state and regions implemented a single regional policy responding to the reform of the Community Cohesion Policy, by unifying the planning of Community regional policy financed by the Structural Funds with that of national regional policy financed by the Underdeveloped Areas Fund (FAS). To achieve the required coordination between the planning of national regional policy and that drawing on the Community Structural Funds, Article 105 of the Finance Law for 2007 provided for a multi-year allocation from the state budget to the FAS on a 7-year basis, and established that the relevant National Strategic Framework, presented by Italy for the planning of the Community Structural Funds, constitutes ‘the locus for the unitary planning of the additional national and Community resources and represents, with regard

to the priorities identified, the reference framework for the ordinary planning on capital account, without prejudice to the powers of the regions’.2 In this framework, the deployment of a mix of FAS and ERDF funds in the Bollenti Spiriti programme responds to a general strategic vision implemented at regional level. The strategic framework for the integration of policies is set at regional level with the participation of the MA, developing broad visions for the employment of ESF and ERDF funds together with national resources. A supplementary effort of coordination and integration of the Structural Funds has been made in the form of the 2011 Special Employment Plan (SPE), which is divided into six intervention axes and 43 specific actions co-financed by both ESF and ERDF. The GOS in Barletta is currently one of the front offices providing orientation for employment in the SPE framework. The planning Regional planning context: Starting from the year 2000, ten Territorial context Development Plans (PITs), covering almost the whole territory of the region, have been developed. In 2005 the newly-elected regional government criticised the partnerships and economic alliances that had been put in place with the PITs. As a result, a new planning tool has replaced the PITs, the Broad Area Strategic Plan (BAP – Piano Strategico di Area Vasta). This tool gives municipalities a stronger role in defining strategic objectives and territorial targets, and recognises the participative approach as part of the planning agenda. Broad Area Plans are still in the process of approval; they demand consultation and cooperation phases, with the creation of new territorial partnerships. The general regional strategic visions of the PITs and Broad Area Plans, as well as the Social Area Plan (Piano Sociale di Zona) are kept under consideration at Bollenti Spiriti programming level Urban planning context: The city of Barletta is the lead municipality of the Vision 2020 Broad Area Integrated Plan.3 At local level the project to regenerate the old distillery is part of two planning tools in effect in the area: an Urban Regeneration Plan (PRU) and a Neighbourhood Contract (Contratto di Quartiere). The PRU in question is a plan designed in the late 1990s around the regeneration of the distillery brownfield site, including several projects at different stages of implementation. A General Urban Plan (PUG) is in course of elaboration. All the planning tools are subject to an Integrated Strategic Evaluation (VAS), in compliance with EC directive 2001/42. 3. IMPLEMENTATION

2 http://www.cipecomitato.it/en/highlights/national_strategic_framework.html In the official documents of the CIPE the term sottoutilizzate is literally translated as underutilised; we preferred here to use the term underdeveloped, which is more consistent with the international debate on area-based regeneration 3 http://www.vision2020.bt.it/ 4

3.1. PROJECT The project of renovating the old distillery in Barletta has a long gestation. The DESIGN AND 20th century factory closed down at the end of the 1980s. In 1990 the Ministry PLANNING for Cultural and Environmental Heritage listed the complex as a heritage object. In 1991 a ‘Forum for the reuse of the distillery’ was launched by a group of citizens and experts concerned with the regeneration of the area, which organised conferences, exhibitions and a bulletin. This civic initiative planted the seeds for a concerned recovery of the old distillery, and mobilised a number of individuals who have contributed over the years to defining the vision for its implementation. Since 1996, the redevelopment of the area has constituted the pivotal intervention of a PRU aimed at upgrading the neighbourhood. In 2002 the Municipality of Barletta acquired the building for reuse. Despite the civic support and constant debate, the vision embodied in the PRU has been only patchily implemented over the last 15 years. Through four different administrations, it has lacked a sound and clear integrated management of the actions. Some projects have been completed, such as a residential building for elderly people (which before being handed over was squatted by disadvantaged families), and a botanical garden, which is almost finished but which there are no means to inaugurate. In this uncertain situation, the region’s Laboratori Urbani call provided a solid base for realising the plan for a youth and employment centre. The municipality almost doubled the investment of the region, investing a significant sum, over €1 000 000 – far more than the minimum co-financing required by the programme, a sign of the project’s strategic importance locally. In March 2006 the call for projects under the ULs action was issued by the Puglia Region for municipalities to propose buildings to be regenerated. In October the list of admissible projects was published. Among these, the Municipality of Barletta signed in February 2008 the detailed contract with the region for the transformation of part of an old distillery. The project is part of the long-term regeneration process of the Borgovilla-Patalini neighbourhood, which lies south of the railway line, and is consequently substantially disadvantaged in terms of facilities and accessibility, although geographically in a relatively central position. An Urban Regeneration Plan (PRU) has been in place since 1996 envisaging a set of projects for the functional conversion of the brownfield site, among which the construction of a social residence for elderly people, a botanical garden and a business incubator. The Laboratori Urbani programme constituted an opportunity to complete the renovation of a disused building in the industrial complex, a former warehouse, to be transformed into the Giovani Open Space. In October 2008 the executive project was delivered by the technical office of the municipality and the call for tenders for the renovation works was issued, and in December the job was awarded to a building company. Renovation works started in February 2009 and were completed by November 2011. Meanwhile in November 2008 a first call for the management of the premises found no candidates, and in February 2009 a second one saw no participants from the city. The management was therefore awarded to the Social Cooperative Prometeo, based in the neighbouring city of Trani, with experience mainly of professional training and education. In March 2011 the managing organisation started its official activity.

Research assessment: the local project did not have a proper research assessment but the programme at regional level, did with a study commissioned by Puglia region from the University of Bari. The Cosa Bolle In Pentola? (‘What’s brewing?’) study provided a screening at regional level of young people’s condition and needs. The investigation used an online platform to get feedback from the young population, organised a series of focus groups to deepen thematic and territorial issues, and developed a set of interviews and case studies, constituting the basis for the following actions, in particular the Principi Attivi call for projects. Selection by managing authority: Although the project can be seen as a direct response to integrated visions defined at regional level together with the

ERDF MA, it is not the result of a selection directed by the managing authority, but of the regional offices managing FAS funds. These projects are selected in compliance with the National Strategic Framework 2007–2013. Risk assessment: The Bollenti Spiriti programme is taking a definite risk in introducing many innovative approaches and procedures into local administrative structures which are trained to respond to different logic, although there is a shared effort at renewal. Among the three players in the partnerships (regional; municipal and NGO level) it is the municipal technical departments that have often shown themselves to be less flexible in adopting new procedures and responsibilities. The capacity of established agencies to adopt new ways of working to respond to new approaches and challenges is an issue. The main risk related to the ULs projects is the integration of their social activity into the local context. For this reason the ULs programme envisaged the formation of consortia of local players in order to achieve a certain level of rootedness of the managing organisations in the local context. In Barletta this could not be fully realised, as no local NGO showed interest in the opportunity – which also raises doubts as to the quality of the participative actions carried out in the preliminary phase. As a result, the Prometeo cooperative is experiencing difficulties in breaking the ice with local young people, despite its skill in social activities. The specific risk of Barletta project is that the difficult context of the neighbourhood and the disputable management of the whole Urban Regeneration Plan may negatively affect the capacity of the Urban Lab to pursue its objective without a significant improvement in the local administrative capacity. Sustainability: The programme has kept sustainability, results exploitation and transferability in mind since the design phase. The funding of the first year of activity aims to sustain the managers as they work towards being economically self-supporting. In the selection phase bidding organisations have to provide an Executive Management Plan, a strategic-operational document describing the creative idea at the basis of the Urban Lab, which allows an objective feasibility evaluation. Managing organisations have to provide a five-year financial plan including a certain provision of low-cost services for young people. A Local Network of the Urban Labs has been created, comprising various local organisations which have signed a networking agreement (protocollo di rete) commit- ting them to support the laboratory’s activity. The social network tools and the future service centre aimed at supporting the activities of the Urban Labs and their territorial coordination are measures designed to exploit results and transfer good practices. Furthermore, the integration of Principi Attivi funded projects with the facilities provided by the ULs is foreseen as an effective synergy of actions. Energy efficiency: In the building refurbishment in Barletta, energy efficiency measures were included, in particular regarding the insulation of roofs and walls. The insertion of solar panels has not been possible for aesthetic reasons and because of the regulation concerning buildings protected as architectural heritage. Role of EU support and added value: There is an added value in the Euro- pean support in providing guidance and principles of integration, sustainability and participation to the regional and urban policy, promoting innovative approaches for new policy-making, and making this broad programme possible. As a consequence of this, the regional MA and the Bollenti Spiriti managers agree on supporting the Bollenti Spiriti programme with ERDF in the future. In Barletta, the European Social Fund provides additional financial support to the ordinary activities of the regenerated Urban Lab. The Prometeo Social Cooperative, the organisation managing GOS Barletta, is a certified educational organisation allowed to supply training, courses and support to employment in the framework of programmes funded by the ESF. This is a case of integration directly created by the final beneficiaries of EU funding, and is seen as a

fundamental resource for the future sustainability of the project. GOS also manages an orientation desk providing information on the Puglia region’s 2011 Extraordinary Employment Plan, which is an integrated framework programme mainly based on the coordination of ERDF and ESF funded operations.4 3.2. Programme management The project manager of Bollenti Spiriti is the director MANAGEMENT, of the Department of Transparency and Active Citizenship of the Puglia region. MONITORING AND The team is organised quite flexibly, based on strong teamwork among the EVALUATION young executives of the project, coming from different educational backgrounds SYSTEM but with a consolidated collaboration which started among the co-workers of an external company subcontracting the management of the early phases of Bollenti Spiriti, who were employed on successive annual contracts by the regional offices. The team is an essential player in the programme, playing the continuous and sometime strenuous role of coordinating all the components and competences involved in the partnerships. Action management: With regard to the ULs action, the region has employed five people full-time under a specific contract since 2010 (recently reduced to four). In addition, two other people work on Principi Attivi and one on Libera il Bene. The group had already been in charge of the programme since 2007, but as a subcontracted company working externally for the region. Together with the director of the department of the region and the MA they constitute the management structure of the whole project. They members of the team are tightly-knit and dynamic with a firm commitment to the programme, flexible and attentive to the issues of hundreds of projects. They have physically travelled through the whole region to support the local managers, to network the single projects, and to develop web tools and procedures to share information. Project management: Regarding the GOS project, the Prometeo Social Cooperative (ONLUS) is a NGO based in Trani. It operates in Barletta with a team of 6 people: a manager, two technicians, two bartenders and a door- keeper. The management contract for the space lasts five years. The cooperative is also part of a consortium that won the call to manage the MAT Urban Lab in the neighbour city of Terlizzi.

Steering process: The use of social media to discuss objectives and operating methods, together with a large series of public events, discussions and workshops, suggests that a sort of public steering process is taking place involving the young citizens of the region, in particular those active in the Principi Attivi initiative, and that the advancement of the programme is slightly consolidating the territorial social capital that this represents. Monitoring: Monitoring happens in a unified procedure covering national, regional and EU-funded operations. The Puglia region uses an Integrated Information System for the Management Planning and Control of the 2007–2013 ERDF and ESF called MIR 2001-2013, which is fed with data, information and documents in support of operations management, surveillance, monitoring and evaluation and certification. MIR (‘Regional Monitoring of Operations’) aims to support the monitoring activities required by the state and the European Union for the ERDF and ESF OPs 2007-2013 providing the tools needed for:  the collection of information about the initiation, progress and conclusion of the interventions financed by the OP;  the production of detail and summary reports on the status of implementation of the programme (with reference to specific physical, and financial impact);  the processing of information, necessary for the conduct of the monitoring and surveillance required by the Ministry of Economy and Finance (IGRUE) and Community bodies;  archiving and management of reference documentation and support of the

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programme and publication on the internet for information of public interest;  transmission of monitoring data on financial, procedural and physical aspects to the central system of IGRUE (MONITWEB), with the frequency and requirements of full disclosure required for the various indicators. The new monitoring system also provides for the implementation of specific components for monitoring the intermediary bodies, interconnection with other systems and management of a document repository. System access is only permitted on the regional intranet. In addition to that, The Bollenti Spiriti staff designed a simplified database with a user-friendly interface accessible on the Bollenti Spiriti website allowing the project managers to report advancements and accountancy of the projects online, facilitating the task of the regional staff in accounting for the advancement of hundreds of parallel projects. Evaluation: The region has a Regional Nucleus for the Evaluation of Public Investments concerning the general strategic output of regional programmes. Regarding Bollenti Spiriti, the project adopts to a certain extent a model of participatory self-evaluation based on the social media tools and the focus groups promoted by the programme, which provide continuous feedback on what is happening on the ground and which are the issues to address. Several evaluation studies have been commissioned by the region from university departments, and a number of studies on the local development approach, creative industries, youth policies etc. have adopted Bollenti Spiriti as a case study (see bibliography). In 2009 an evaluation study was commissioned by the region’s Department of Transparency and Active Citizenship from the Department of Sociology of the University of Bari, which aimed to evaluate youth participation as enhanced by the Bollenti Spiriti programme. The assessment was carried out at a time when only a small percentage of laboratories had started operating, and focused on investigating three areas: participation, new services and the network approach, analysing how the three approaches are connected. Combination of different EU funds: The project is not funded by EU funds other than the ERDF. Overall integration strategy with ESF actions happened ‘ex-ante’ at OP design level. Both managing authority and managers of the Bollenti Spiriti programme suggested that solutions for the better integration of ESF and ERDF actions at programme level should be envisaged, e.g. a unified MA. 3.3 GOVERNANCE: Partnerships: For all the ULs projects, the partnership for the project implement- PARTNERSHIP, ation has three main stakeholders: region, municipality and local NGOs or PARTICIPATION AND informal groups (peer groups, cultural and civic associations, informal networks, EMPOWERMENT artists and different sorts of professionals). In the case of GOS Barletta there is the Regione Puglia, Municipality of Barletta and Prometeo social cooperative. The regional government, which is also the MA, provides the integrated strategic vision and the operational coordination for the whole set of actions comprising the Bollenti Spiriti programme, as well as monitoring and consultancy to the stakeholders. The main interest of the region is to demonstrate the creative potential of the young generation active in the area and to attract investment in the innovation and culture sectors. The municipalities provided properties to be revitalised and operational capacity to regenerate them. The municipality manages the physical regeneration of the facility and subcontracts to the construction firm carrying out the work. The local youth group provides the operational management of the structure on the basis of a five-year contract with the region, of which only the first is funded. The youth organisation also bears the risk of possible operating losses. Participation is stimulated by the multiple interactions between the partners in

8 the realisation of the project. In theory the procedure of the realisation of the ULs follows this process: ‘After a call for proposals, for the projects approved the implementation process starts (activities), which have these main steps:  the refurbishment of the buildings  the setting up of an institutional body for youth participation with advisory functions (Local Youth Network)  the writing of the executive plan of the laboratory (Local Management Plan)  the selection of the partnership that will manage the laboratory (Management Body). The start-up of the laboratory is possible when the refurbishment of the building is complete, a Local Youth Network is based on a formal agreement, a Local Management Plan is ready and a Management Body is selected. The programme provides funds only for the first year (maximum € 140 000), but the laboratory has to be open at least for a further 4 years. For this obligation, two actors are responsible: the Management Body expects to find other useful resources; the LAs have to assign the refurbished building to the activities funded from the programme’ (Morciano, D. Scardigno A.F). This scheme is repeated in all the ULs projects, while in other Bollenti Spiriti actions, such as Principi Attivi, the partnership with local projects is directly managed by the region: here the managing team of Bollenti Spiriti at regional level has a direct relationship with the end beneficiaries. Participation and empowerment: The programme adopts a philosophy that youth policy is in place to exploit local youth resources rather than considering youth a social issue. The participative approach is a key element in various phases of the initiative. At the level of the managing authority, the strategic orientations were elaborated through consultation with the political, institutional and economic actors of the region. At a programme level, since the early phases the Bollenti Spiriti team has set up innovative procedures to involve the stakeholders of the actions, e.g. sharing on the social web platform the draft calls for applications and defining the rules of the competition for ideas through the final recipients’ feedback. The managing team made a great effort to cover the territory of the region personally, organising a great number of local meetings and public events to explain the philosophy and the procedure of the programme. They facilitated the process of formation of the local managing teams and their relationships with the local authorities. In addition, every year Bollenti Spiriti organises a BarCamp, a user-generated conference (also known as an ‘unconference’) to foster debate on the programme among its beneficiaries, who have taken part successfully and actively. In the specific context of Barletta, the involvement of the local population and young people has been more problematic than average. The first call directed to local non-profit organisations to manage the renovated building elicited no responses, and in the second no candidates from the city were present. The Prometeo Social Cooperative from the nearby town of Trani won the competition and it was asked to involve local young people in the project. The partnership of the municipality with the managing organisation does not appear to be particularly successful in terms of creating the local conditions for the inclusion of the project in the social milieu. On the other hand, at supra-local level the demand for educational services has been satisfactory so far, with students coming from far-away localities to attend the courses organised within the GOS project.

Role of the city administration In general the municipalities play a central role in the ULs action, as they manage the regeneration of the buildings. Local administrations are supposed to identify and propose the buildings to be refurbished, to manage their physical regeneration and equipment provision, to issue the call for the selection of the managing subject and to stipulate the contracts for their management. In the case of Barletta a particularity has been the strong financial involvement of the city, which contributed far beyond the minimum 20% required, given its strategic importance in the Urban Regen- eration Plan (PRU). However, the municipality appears to be the least innovative of the partners in responding to the challenges of the project, with repercussions on the activity of the project managing organisation.

4. INNOVATIVE ELEMENTS AND NOVEL APPROACHES 4.1 INNOVATION There are several innovative aspects in the programme and its structure of governance. The main aspect is in the programme philosophy of the Puglia region, reversing the paternalistic approach towards young people and turning it into a bottom-up participative approach investing in people’s ideas and creativity: ‘Don’t ask what the region can do for young people, ask rather what the young people can do for the region’. The first step to investing in local youth energies was the establishment within the regional administration of a team drafting the policy guidelines and coordinating the Bollenti Spiriti programme. The previous regional councillor entrusted the programme’s coordination to young civil servants with various backgrounds including sociology, political sciences, economics and international cooperation. A major innovation in the governance structure has been the constant effort to bridge the gap between institutions and beneficiaries, avoiding ‘patronising organisations and intermediaries in the relation with the youth’. (Interview with Bollenti Spiriti manager). This includes the use of social web platforms and ICT tools to keep constant contact and feedback with and among the stakeholders e.g. the draft calls for projects of the Principi Attivi action were posted on the website and discussed with the potential beneficiaries before being officially issued for proposals. Innovation is also reflected in the transparent procedure for selecting and implementing projects, which imposes the coordination of regional, municipal, informal and third sector – which, although it throws up some issues and contradictions, allows a faster procedure than usual for the implementation of public works. 4.2. KEY In spring 2012 the Giovani Open Space project had just ended its first year of IMPLEMENTATION public activities. Implementation challenges and problem-solving practices were CHALLENGES not in short supply. One of the problems, as stated by the managers of other AND PROBLEM- ULs,5 was the adaptation of the physical structure as delivered by the executive SOLVING project of the municipality. In the case of Barletta, as well as in other projects of PRACTICES the ULs action, the municipality is not required to perform an ex-ante analysis of both the users’ and the youth group’s needs managing the project. This meant that the managing organisation spent significant parts of the fund covering the first subsidised year – originally destined for project activities – in technical integration and modification of the building to fit the purposed activities. Basically 80% of the funding is dedicated to the refurbishment of the buildings and 20% to the Urban Laboratories, but the cost of managing the participatory and cooperation processes are not eligible in the programme. This problem was acknowledged by the Bollenti Spiriti staff, and the successive

5 During the 3-day survey, in Cerignola a discussion was held involving managers and project developers of three ULs and members of the Bollenti Spiriti managing team. A similar meeting took place in Bari with members of three Principi Attivi projects. 10 calls for Libera il Bene, a twin programme of the ULs which converts properties confiscated from the Mafia, have been amended. In this case the regional authority awards the funds to a previously formed partnership of a municipality offering the facility and a managing organisation of a project, which jointly design the building conversion project. Another problem regards the sustainability of the activities. Given the fact that much of the finance of the first year has been absorbed by the technical setting- up of the structure, the contract signed by the managing organisation, in the case of Barletta the Prometeo cooperative, is binding for the provision of training activities at low or no cost for local young people, and an issue at stake is its capacity to raise sufficient income in the future from cultural and training activities to sustain the employment of its workers. On the other hand, a specific potential of Prometeo is that one of its branches is certified for employment training and orientation activities, which means that it is developing ESF-funded actions, creating an effective integration of EU-funded actions at bottom level. With regard to the whole ULs programme, it is too early to evaluate the sustainability of the managing structures in the long term. The three different Urban Laboratory managers interviewed showed different commercial results at the end of the first year, with Cerignola ExOpera showing an optimistic forecast based on activity so far, LUC Manfredonia having serious trouble finding commercial revenue for the cultural activity it promotes, and GOS in middle position, worrying about the coming period without public support. In the next phase of the programme, there will be a resource centre, whose role is to help all the stakeholders of the whole regional programme to provide consultancy and tutoring. Moreover, aside from the informational and organisational procedures put in place by the programme, so far an essential problem-solving practice has been the direct connection with, and often physical presence of, the members of the Bollenti Spiriti team on site, helping with all the issues that emerge in the implementation of hundreds of projects. This by the way has created solid human relationships among many stakeholders of the Bollenti Spiriti community but requires further consolidation of the staff that until now has worked on short-term contracts (both at programme and project level). In terms of management, the structure of the GOS shows some innovation in the mix of functions, having on one hand as a main pillar music production and distribution, on the other a variegated training offer, together with more ambitious initiatives such as the summer school on participative planning. In 2011 GOS hosted, in collaboration with the provincial BAP and the University of Bari, a summer school focused on the process of designing the new Provincial Territorial Coordination Plan (PTCP). The workshop aimed to create a platform for territorial partnership contributing to the formation of the first strategic framework for the plan. The summer school will be repeated in 2012, with a closer focus on the regeneration of the ex-distillery. Communication: New approaches to communicate and disseminate the advances and results of the project are at the core of the Bollenti Spiriti programme. Its web platform aims to assist in the elaboration of projects though collaborative tools, and to disseminate results. It is a portal that maps and connects the individual projects’ sites, and is designed following a social media approach. Bollenti Spiriti also has a huge Facebook group, numbering about 270 000 followers, which in this context shows its use as a powerful social policy tool. Furthermore, a simplified model for reporting the progress and accounts of the projects has been designed, and this online monitoring system has shown itself to be an extremely useful adjunct to the main accountancy and monitoring and the standard national and European certification procedures, while keeping the greatest transparency of the policy in all his phases. The Bollenti Spiriti programme is establishing a resource centre which will provide consultancy and training support for the project managers, whose management is subcontracted to an external organisation. The selected managing organisation is the Fondazione Fitzcarraldo, an ‘independent centre

for planning, research, training and documentation on cultural, arts and media management, economics and policies, at the service of those who create, practise, take part in, produce, promote and support the arts and culture’6 based in Turin. The main challenge experienced during the project implementation has been to adapt the building to the activities foreseen. Another issue is the fragmented state of the refurbishment of the ex-distillery, which leaves GOS in the middle of an only partly accessible area with a very limited open-air space for summer activities. Another planned step of the PRU is to create an employment office in a building to be renovated next to the GOS. However, the biggest challenges seem to lie ahead, in creating the conditions for long-term activity and finding rootedness in the social texture of the neighbourhood. 4.3. THEMATIC Local empowerment and public participation FOCUS Bollenti Spiriti is explicitly designed as a programme for local empowerment enhancing the participation of young people in the development of the territory and of the regional economy. It seems particularly effective in challenging the area-based approach for dealing with spatial deprivation with a strong networking approach inspired by social web logics (see section 3.3 above). 5. FUNDING Bollenti Spiriti main actions:  Libera il bene ERDF and national funds: €6.5 million (90%) Municipal cofinancing: €650 000 (10%)  Principi attivi Ministry of Youth Policies €10.5 million (2008, via framework agreement) Regional funds: €5 million (2010)  Laboratori urbani (ULs): Total funding €54 million State-region FAS funds €44 million (three framework agreements with the Ministry of Economic Development) Municipal cofinancing €10 million  GOS Barletta: Total: €1 760 000 (€1 522 331 physical redevelopment and equipment + € 140 000 management of social activities) Regional funds: €700 000 (40%) Municipality of Barletta: €1 060 000 (60%)

The programme is totally funded by public finance, and no private sector funding is involved in the start-up phase. Projects have to develop an activity plan taking into consideration financial sustainability based on the provision of services. 6. PROJECT ASSESSMENT 6.1. FINANCIAL The managing organisations receive a binding concession for five years of SUSTAINABILITY activity. The Prometeo Social Cooperative is an ONLUS, a private body legally recognised as leading actions of social utility and granted a special fiscal status (art. 10 d.lgs. 4 December 1997, no. 460). The future financial sustainability of the project is perceived as an important issue, and the strategy of the region for the future development of the programme is to concentrate on supporting existing projects to achieve the necessary entrepreneurial and strategic capacity. It appears evident that any prospect of the total self-sustainability of the 150 Urban Labs from fees deriving from the provision of services is unrealistic.

6 http://www.fitzcarraldo.it/en/foundation/

The project did not start as a pilot action in previous EU-funded operations, although the former experience of URBAN, e.g. the regeneration of the ancient centre of Bari, has been taken critically into consideration. 6.2. The philosophy of Bollenti Spiriti is that of a massive initiative developing a TRANSFERABILITY great number of projects in parallel on the territory, trusting the ‘critical mass’ effect of the cultural and infrastructural investment over the whole territory. Bollenti Spiriti itself can be seen as the mainstreaming of innovative experiences previously tested on a smaller scale (the Officine Kos in Lecce is seen as a model for the Urban Labs operation). The Urban Laboratories (ULs) approach has been transferred to the Libera il Bene action, although with substantial improvements of the procedure deriving from the problems experienced by the ULs. On a national and European level, Bollenti Spiriti achieved good visibility, being identified as a successful, innovative and potentially transferable experience, and winning an award as a social best practice in 2009, if not in the specific local modality, in the general approach and attitude towards youth and local development policy. The members of the team are constantly presenting the experience in workshops, conferences and festivals promoting the Bollenti Spiriti approach in other regions. 6.3 ISSUES AND It is difficult to identify specific problems emerging in the parallel development PROBLEMS of more than 800 projects implemented by Bollenti Spiriti over six years. In general, a major problem has been the resistance of a political and administrative culture used to a consolidated modus operandi and distrusting innovation, which reflects a certain inertia of society at large. Bollenti Spiriti is taking up the challenge with ambition, in trusting and enhancing a new generation by opening up new social spaces through shared and transparent logic, a campaign which has won a certain number of battles to renovate the status quo through struggling every day at local level. The big issue is now the future sustainability of the projects after the enthusiasm of the start-up phase, creating conditions for an effective change in policy, praxis and in the attitude of the citizens. This is particularly true in the case of GOS in Barletta. The adaptation of a standard procedure proposed by the regional programme in this local context showed that the partnership had weaknesses and found it difficult to respond to the local challenges. The problematic social context has not yet responded to the implanted project, the quality of the participative actions promoted by the municipality is questionable, and the Cooperativa Prometeo has spent much of its energies so far in fixing unexpected problems. However, the small managing team is intelligently pursuing an active role in a reflexive and participative urban development process, to nest the project in a wider vision for the territory. 6.4 PROJECT The Bollenti Spiriti programme is steadily multiplying its results in terms of OUTPUTS & activities, structures and projects delivered, and is consolidating their action as a RESULTS networked community. Principi Attivi has financed 610 social enterprise projects, and the reconversion of 10 structures confiscated from organised criminals funded by Libera il Bene is in process. In the case of the Urban Laboratories, 150 buildings have been identified, 132 abandoned buildings funded for refurbishment, 169 municipalities involved, and the regeneration process has started to create more than 100 000 sq. m of new public facilities. So far, 109 managing organisations have been selected, and already 91 premises are in full activity. The sustainability of all these projects in the long run in unclear, but an evident achievement of the programme so far is to reverse the increasing gap between the institutions and the local youth and trigger a community empowerment process opening up concrete possibilities of involvement. Several evaluation and good practice studies have detected good results in capacity building and local empowerment achieved by the programme. Regarding the GOS in Barletta, the project delivered on time the planned output of a working structure providing cultural and training activities. Its impact in

terms of social involvement as well as economic revenue is still limited, given the difficult conditions of the neighbourhood and the implications of the overall regeneration process of the area subject to the Urban Regeneration Plan, which does not share the innovative approach and effectiveness of the Bollenti Spiriti funded action. Still, GOS is the only part of the regeneration process which not only has been delivered on time and with a shorter implementation period than the average, but is already working and providing the intended services to the population, which at least in comparison with the usual practice is a demonstrable achievement. 7. CONCLUSIONS: KEY SUCCESS FACTORS AND LESSONS LEARNED A factor of success outlined by some interviewees has been the level of autonomy of the project. Given the consolidated balance of power in the administration structures, Bollenti Spiriti was given the character of a ‘bet’, which benefited from a relative autonomy as an outsider programme for youth that ventured onto the territory of urban development with its own resources (coming from an exceptional source of funding, FAS and ERDF). The main success factor of the programme resides in its general attitude of reversing the paternalistic approach of institutional policy, and casting young people as protagonists of the process instead of being seen as recipients. A clear reference to a ‘hacker’ logic imagining open governance forms has been taken into account in developing the programme. This shared responsibility and networking capacity has transformed the beneficiaries of the policy into an active community able to build a distributed governance chain. In the elaboration of the programme the Bollenti Spiriti team developed a certain number of principles which were successful in determining the effectiveness and dynamism of the operation. They have been synthesised into a series of slogans and adopted as pillars for the programming:  ‘Change is a process, not a method.’ It is important to have good reference practices, but every situation has its particularities, and often this is exactly what determines its potential success.  ‘Don’t just allocate and monitor, but also be the first to share.’ If we want young people to share their capacities, the institution should regain their trust by being the first to share its resources and create a community.  ‘Not only a person ‘responsible’ for the process, but also responsible processes.’ The complexity of the processes put in place requires not only the formal responsibility of key individuals, but a shared responsibility of all those who are involved in the operation.  ‘To trigger new processes, we need new people.’ We need new views interpreting what needs to be done, so we need new people to be involved in the process.  ‘Without trust, no innovation.’ We have learnt that trust is a strategic resource for innovation, especially when we point to human resource as a lever for sustainable development.  ‘Change is contagion, and contagious.’ Transformation happens through confrontation and a tendency towards listening and participation. In order to transform the processes into real change it is necessary to build visions.  ‘Nothing will happen as planned. This may be good news.…’ Starting a process is more important than imagining it in all its details. It is important to start with ideas and improve them progressively. Flexibility and adaptability are fundamental requirements of a successful policy. However, the reality on the ground shows that from the enunciation and circulation of some innovative principles to their effective application is a long journey, which also requires intervening in the capacity of the local administration with skilled knowledge and coordination. A lesson learned is that in order to achieve sustainable results, it is necessary to foster innovation, capacity building and cooperation among local administrative agencies, a challenge that

the Bollenti Spiriti programme has just started to address. The personal approach of the members of the team, with their presence and their capacity to respond quickly to the requests of the stakeholders, has been a success factor. The strategy of openness and networking has been until now a major element of the policy’s success. 8. FURTHER INFORMATION Bibliography Morciano D., Scardigno A. F., (2010), I Laboratori Urbani ‘Bollenti Spiriti’ in Puglia: opportunità e rischi di un programma pilota di sviluppo locale Morciano D., Scardigno A. F. (2010), Bollenti Spiriti Urban Laboratories: new life chances for the young? Paper presented at the EES conference Annibale D’Elia (2011) Bollenti Spiriti, innovazione creativa e politiche giovanili: una ricetta 2.0. PowerPoint presentation. Bernardini E., Cascella S. (2011), La rigenerazione urbana nell’esperienza pugliese, XIV conferenza SIU – Abitare l’Italia. Territori, Economie, Diseguaglianze Città di Barletta, (2011) Piano Urbanistico Generale Valutazione Ambientale Strategica: Documento di Scoping.

Websites: http://www.barlettacresce.it/presentazione.htmlhttp://bollentispiriti.regione.puglia .it/ http://www.fesrpuglia.eu/ http://www.sistema.puglia.it http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/country/prordn/details_new.cfm?gv_PAY=IT &gv_reg=690&gv_PGM=1157&LAN=7&gv_PER=2&gv_defL=7 http://create2009.europa.eu/projects/participating_countries/italia_italy.html http://www.giovaniopenspace.it/ Contact Marco Ranieri Staff Bollenti Spiriti Regione Puglia Department of Transparency and Active Citizenship Lungomare Nazario Sauro, 31 70121 Bari Telephone Number +49 (0)80 540 61 70 [email protected] http://bollentispiriti.regione.puglia.it/

Name of expert Lorenzo Tripodi and Laura Colini

AEIDL has been contracted by the European Commission in 2012 in order to provide examples of learning practice in urban development supported by the European Regional Development Fund during the 2007-2013 programming period (contract reference 2011.CE.16.0.AT.035). The views expressed by AEIDL remain informal and should not under any circumstance be regarded as the official position of the European Commission.

Barletta, Italy Old buildings make way for young entrepreneurs Bollenti Spiriti is a programme of the Puglia Region aimed at youth empowerment. Although directed by a sectoral office for social policy, it is explicitly conceived as an integrated programme with an urban development approach, which combines building renovation with the creation of new public facilities for socio-cultural and educational initiatives, valuing the entrepreneurial and creative potential of young generations. The programme’s Urban Laboratories action uses imaginative ways to engage young people in driving forward ideas around growth, the knowledge economy and social inclusion.

Old buildings make way for young entrepreneurs In the relatively short time since 2006, the Bollenti Spiriti (‘High Spirits’) programme has been able to mobilise a great number of young people, associations, and municipalities to enhance a network of cultural facilities and social projects supporting creativity as a resource for the region, and empowers young people by encouraging cooperation, participation and coproduction among several stakeholders. The programme also developed a series of participative practices that are innovative in the regional administrative context. The programme comprises three main actions which run in parallel and are meant to build a system in which youth-based actions will create a critical mass of micro-cultural transforma- tions. Principi Attivi is a programme aimed at young people (18-32) who are required to form a partnership (minimum two people) and propose an idea for territorial, social or entrepreneurial activities. Good ideas are granted up to €25 000 and given full support for the development and communication. The action has financed 610 projects so far. The Laboratori Urbani action redevelops public properties using a multi-stakeholder and participative strategy: the regional administration invites municipalities to identify unused buildings in their area, and funds a twofold action for their recovery: first, the physical regeneration of the building, managed by the technical offices of the local administration; second, a public call for an organisation to manage the new facilities for training, education and cultural purposes. These organisations are contracted for five years, and given a start-up contribution for the first year. Since 2006, 150 buildings have been selected. All the regeneration processes have started, and are creating more than 100 000 sq. m. of new public facilities. So far, 109 managing organisations have been contracted, and 91 structures are already fully active. Libera il Bene is a newly started sister programme of Urban Laboratories aimed at the redevelopment of public properties confiscated from the mafia into social facilities, without targeting young operators.

Old buildings make way for young entrepreneurs Puglia is one of the regions of Italy’s Mezzogiorno, which even today lies way behind the northern regions of the country in economic and social terms. It is a long thin region, stretching for 400 km along the Adriatic sea from the ‘heel’ of Italy halfway to Rome. It has a polycentric structure with a great number of medium-sized towns, most having between 30 000 and 100 000 inhabitants. The strategic vision for its development aims to make the most of this balanced network structure and its fabric of SMEs, after the general disengagement from big industry. Since the 1990s, the region has made an effort to renovate governance and planning tools relating to decentralisation and subsidiarity, with a focus on their alignment with European policy. In 2005 the region’s new governor was instrumental in changing regional policy so as to bring in more participation, transparency and youthful energy. Bollenti Spiriti (‘High Spirits’) is one of the most successful policies promoted by this new regional government. It is widely recognised at national and European level as an exemplary case, gaining an award for good practice in the European Year of Creativity and Innovation 2009. The programme was firstly conceived by an informal steering committee of supporters of the new regional government as a necessary step to activate creative energies in the region. At that time neither a department nor even a specific office for youth policy existed in the regional administration. Bollenti Spiriti was initiated in practice and strongly supported by the former Councillor for Transparency and Active Citizenship, who used charismatic leadership to activate the energies of the young team, and outlined a completely new approach to policy for the younger generations. This was summed up in the slogan: ‘Don’t ask what the region can do for young people, ask what young people can do for the region.’ In substance, the shift was from a paternalistic approach seeing youth policies as supporting a vulnerable social group, to providing tools, financial and knowledge resources to a dynamic sector of society, deserving of trust and operational autonomy. In the elaboration of the programme the Bollenti Spiriti team developed a set of principles that proved to be successful in determining the effectiveness and dynamism of the operation. They have been synthesised into a series of slogans and adopted as pillars for the programming:  Change is a process, not a method.  Don’t just allocate and monitor, but also be the first to share.  Not only a person responsible for the process, but also responsible processes.  To trigger new processes, we need new people.  Without trust, no innovation.  Change is contagion, and contagious.  Nothing will happen as planned. This may be good news… Three spirited actions The programme’s first initiatives were grants for international mobility by the region’s students, aimed at transferring knowledge and enabling young researchers to contribute to the region’s growth. The Cosa Bolle in Pentola? (‘What’s brewing?’) study was commissioned from the University of Bari to provide a screening of youth expectations and problems: the research set up an online collaborative platform and focus groups involving young stakeholders in the discussion. The Bollenti Spiriti programme is organised according to three main actions which represent a full package of innovative policies covering the whole region. Even though the programme has a special focus on youth policies, several measures such as the renovation of buildings, coordination with local stakeholders and cooperation among different administrations, make this programme an interesting example of how horizontal and vertical cooperation can function in practice. There are now 800 projects under way, grouped into three main actions: Urban Laboratories, Principi Attivi and Libera il Bene. The first action was the inspiration for the whole programme, the second supports bottom-up projects proposed by young people, and the third is similar to Urban Laboratories but with a focus on properties confiscated from criminals. 2

Fig. 1. The Bollenti Spiriti 2.0 website  Urban Laboratories –youth centres in redundant buildings The lack of space in which to carry out cultural and creative activities was identified as an issue, and so the first step in the history of the Bollenti Spiriti programme was the launch of the Urban Laboratories action. It has been the most consistent in terms of investment with €48 million spent in one call for projects. The call invited all the municipalities in the region to identify unused buildings in their urban areas to be transformed into cultural centres: the programme would pay for their renovation as well as the start-up of a local management organisation. The resources came from the FAS (Fund for Underdeveloped Areas), allocated by the CIPE (Interministerial Committee for Economic Programming). According to the Financial Law 2007, the national resources of the FAS equate to the EU Structural Funds, and respond to the same NSRF and related monitoring and certification procedures. This is to say that while Bollenti Spiriti is only partially funded by the Structural Funds, its procedures and approach follow the EU principles and respond to the general objectives of the ERDF regional operational programme. It was not an easy task to adapt the procedure for accessing funds from axis 7 of the National Strategic Reference Framework dedicated to urban regeneration with a youth programme. Particularly innovative was the fact that together with the resources for regenerating unused public buildings, the programme was funding the first years of social and cultural activity of a locally formed organisation, which means that one of the difficulties was to design an integrated measure while using a sectoral fund. The first call for Urban Laboratories projects was designed before the Bollenti Spiriti staff was in place, and only one officer of the regional administration was in charge of the new programme. In order to manage the new programme, an external body was created employing seven people. This staff, which responded efficiently to the goal of designing the new policy approach, was successively integrated into the regional office on an annual contract basis. Today, this team constitutes the core of the programme’s management, and forms a new office in the regional administration. The members form a cohesive and dynamic team of seven young executives with mixed backgrounds in sociology, political sciences, economics, international cooperation etc. and a skilled understanding of communication and social media. The team is responsible for the innovative procedures of stakeholder involvement and partnership governance as well as for accountancy and certification procedures. Its members are extremely committed and active in mobilising energies in the field, facilitating local partnerships, presenting the Bollente Spiriti programme and its opportunities by organising and facilitating discussions and workshops with local actors, travelling all over the region to meet local stakeholders and discussing the policy’s aims with the target groups. The Urban Laboratories (ULs) represented a big challenge for the regional government, which has been able to support the recovery of 150 disused buildings involving 169 municipalities (some projects are the fruit of inter-municipal cooperation), and already has 91 managing organisations fully activated. It was the testing ground on which the Bollenti Spiriti programme 3 and its philosophy have been formed, with a ‘learning by doing’ approach. It introduced a participative approach based on wide partnerships, involving the regional administration as strategic coordinator, local administrations and NGOs. In theory the procedure for creating a UL is as follows: ‘After a call of proposals, for the projects approved the implementation process starts (activities), which have these main steps:  the refurbishment of buildings  the setting up of an institutional body for youth participation with advisory functions (local youth network)  the writing of the executive plan of the laboratory (local management plan)  the selection of the partnership that will manage the laboratory (management body) The laboratory can start up when the refurbishment of the building is complete, a local youth network is based on a formal agreement, a local management plan is ready and a management body is selected. The programme provides operational funding only for the first year (up to €140 000), but the laboratory has to be open at least for other four years. For this obligation, two actors are responsible: the management body expects to find other useful resources; the local authorities have to assign the refurbished building to the activities funded from the programme.’1 On the other hand, the regenerated structures now need to ensure their economic sustainability after the first year start-up grant is spent. Interviews with the managers of three different Urban Laboratories 2 highlight multiple issues and problems emerging during the development of the projects, with a great degree of diversity in local factors affecting the implementation and different perceived levels of success. A major set of problems shared by the managers interviewed was the adaptation of the physical structure as delivered by the executive project of the municipality, which did not meet the technical requirements of future activities – because the users’ Fig. 2. Stakeholders involved in an Urban Laboratory project, with the need had not been assessed at an Bollente Spiriti staff on the right early stage. This resulted in the managing organisations spending a substantial part of the funding they received to see them through the first year’s activities on the technical integration and modification of the building, burdening the social activity budget with an unexpected deficit. An aspect which characterised the projects is the significance (in both positive and negative senses) of the commercial revenue from the bar activity connected with public events. The impression is that the Urban Lab programme has been effective in starting a huge redevelopment operation, which cut typical public works timetables by half – but left a lot of problem-solving to be done afterwards. The Bollente Spiriti team demonstrated however a good capacity to learn from the experience and to readdress the policy-making, creating new tools and programmes to improve its effectiveness.  Principi Attivi – one grant for one good idea After organising the procedure for creating these 150 new public facilities all over the region, the Bollente Spiriti team was responsible for the second action, launched in 2008. Principi Attivi is derived from a framework agreement with the Ministry of Economic Development for a funding action worth €10.5 million. The initiative was conceived as a dissemination of small grants of up to €25 000 based on the general principle of one grant for one good idea in the

1 Morciano, D. and Scardigno A.F. (2010) 2 ExOpera in Cerignola, LUC in Manfredonia, Giovani Open Space in Barletta. 4 field of social enterprise and territorial empowerment. The draft call for projects was posted on the website and discussed with the potential beneficiaries until it took its definitive form. In parallel, meetings and focus groups with potential beneficiaries went on, together with the smart use of social networking tools, including a wiki, a blog and a Facebook group, which have been significant for the collaborative design of the programme. Finally, a first ‘BarCamp’ was organised in 2007 in Bari, involving thousands of young people in open methods of ‘unconferencing’. The first rule in a BarCamp is ‘all participants, no spectators’. The purpose is to bring together people, projects, institutions, enterprises and operators in a free and open environment, to build confidence, collaboration and peer learning. Since then the Bollente Spiriti BarCamp has been repeated every year and attracts an ever larger number of people, so it has become a decisive moment for the collective revision of the policy. This set of participative actions, in which the future recipients of the programme were involved in defining its scope and procedures, resulted in the Principi Attivi call for projects. The eligible ideas fall into three areas: the protection and valorisation of the territory; developing the knowledge economy and innovation; and social inclusion and active citizenship. If selected, informal groups are committed to establishing a new legal entity of their choice (association, cooperative or company). In 2008 Principe Attivi had €10.5 million to invest. Out of 1 563 projects submitted, 420 projects were funded, of which 286 were associations, 113 companies, and 21 cooperatives. Today, 73% are operating under the same form, 8% are active in a different form (individuals or groups), 1% are being transformed, 12% are in existence but currently inactive, and 6% closed after the end of the project. In 2010, for a €4.8 million fund, 2 231 projects were submitted but only 190 could be selected. Principi Attivi, although financing small actions with small grants, is a successful formula to activate collaborative energies all over the region, producing an explosion of creative projects, ranging from sustainable mobility (bike- taxi, green paths, car- pooling) to participative Fig. 3. Unexpected: The Blackshape Prime, the fastest ultralight plane in the world, is planning and community produced by a young enterprise in Monopoli which started with a Principi Attivi grant, empowerment (public space despite the initial idea of designing carbon fibre furniture. intervention, community gardens, open GIS), sustainable tourism (valorisation of old local railway networks, valorisation and protection of natural environments) and smart enterprise (creative recycling of materials, aeronautical industry, design, fashion). Many of the Principi Attivi projects demonstrated a clear capacity to engage with territorial transformation and urban development, often establishing synergies with the Urban Laboratory projects. This action, despite the smaller level of funding, has found an easier way to mobilise creative resources, pointing to more direct involvement of the project’s recipient associations, while the Urban Laboratories action, which was more ambitious and complex in its partnerships and governance, had more difficulties in finding its way through the consolidated urban development praxis.  Libera il Bene – reusing the spoils of crime In 2009 a third Action was launched: Libera il Bene (LiB), in collaboration with the Libera association, which has long been active at national level redeveloping properties confiscated from the mafia. This programme – although not specifically directed at youth but at the conversion of buildings into socially useful structures – draws on the Urban Laboratories experience of recovering disused buildings, with some substantial improvements derived from experience. Here, management associations and municipalities have to form a partnership to participate in the call, submitting a common project for the reuse of the building. This programme is the only one that is almost completely (90%) funded from the ERDF, responding

5 to Priority 3 of the regional OP: ‘Social inclusion and services to enhance the quality of life and the attractiveness of the region’ (measure 3.4.2 ‘Interventions for the social reuse of goods confiscated from criminal organisations’). Ten projects have been financed so far, with a public investment of €7 million. ‘Given the lack of resources in the local budget, the risk with confiscated goods was of causing a boomerang effect, with local people seeing properties fall into dereliction and associating public intervention with degradation in respect to when the criminal families held them,’ explains Regional Councillor Fratoianni. ‘That is why we created LiB, to provide a means for a quick and practical recovery of the buildings.’ LiB represents a smaller and somehow more sectoral intervention among the Bollente Spiriti programmes, but demonstrates the transferability of the approach promoted with the Urban Laboratories and Principi Attivi. Giovani Open Space – from distillery to cultural centre The Municipality of Barletta applied in 2006 to the Urban Laboratories call for projects to create the Giovani Open Space – GOS (‘Youth Open Space’), an urban centre dedicated to music and education, by redeveloping a brownfield site in a disadvantaged area of the town. Barletta is one of the three main towns in the polycentric province of Barletta-Andria-Trani, with a recently instituted Broad Area Strategic Plan – BAP (Piano Strategico di Area Vasta). The project of recovering the old distillery has a long gestation period. The factory, built at the beginning of the 20th century, closed at the end of 1980s. In 1990 the Ministry for Cultural and Environmental Heritage listed the complex as a heritage object to defend it from possible speculation. By 1991 a ‘Forum for the reuse of the distillery’ was launched by a group of citizens and experts concerned with the regeneration of the area. This civic initiative planted the seed of a concerned recovery, and mobilised a number of individuals who contributed over the years to defining the vision for its implementation.

Fig. 4. The squatted old people’s home and the unused Botanical Garden In 2002 the Municipality of Barletta acquired the structure. Since 1996, the redevelopment of the area has been the lynchpin of an Urban Regeneration Programme (PRU) aimed at upgrading the neighbourhood. However, the PRU’s planned vision has only been patchily implemented over the last 15 years, through four different administrations, without a sound or clear integrated management of the actions. Some projects have been completed, like a residential building for elderly people, which was formerly illegally occupied by disadvantaged families, and a botanical garden, which has been almost completed but has not yet found the means to be inaugurated. In this uncertain situation, within a clearly problematic urban context, the regional cal for Urban Laboratories provided a solid base for creating a youth and employment centre. The municipality almost doubled the investment of the region, spending a significant sum – over €1 000 000 – on the structure, far more than the minimum co-financing required by the programme. Renovation works started in February 2009 and were completed by November 2011. Meanwhile a call for tenders was issued for the management of the structure – but no candidates applied. A second call attracted no local participants. The management was therefore assigned to the Prometeo Social Cooperative, based in the nearby town of Trani, with

6 experience mainly in professional training and education. In March 2011 the managing organisation started its official activity. The project has two main parts. One activity is centred on musical production, providing recording facilities, rehearsal space and an auditorium. GOS organises music courses, concerts and events. A complete production studio for music recording is functional, and the project foresees the creation of a music label. The other activity comprises a varied range of educational courses on subjects including theatrical tailoring, theatre, music recording, video editing as well as professional training for real estate agents, gardeners, etc. Through one of its branches, the Prometeo cooperative also runs ESF-funded training activities – thus providing a bottom-up integration of EU structural funds – and contributes to the regional network of employment policy offices. The cooperative has a core of five people which manages a variable number of side projects and collaborators working on short-term contracts. In the case of GOS Barletta the director is the president of the association Zona Effe (which in fact provided the cultural vision for GOS) and is himself employed by the cooperative on a annual contract basis, together with other three full-time workers who manage the place (a sound engineer, a bartender and a logistics person) and three part-time workers (a web designer, a secretary and a door-keeper). Those jobs were funded by the first year start-up grant, but sustainability in the coming period is a serious issue.

Fig. 5. The buildings around the ex-distillery that still have to be redeveloped, and the recording studio In 2011 GOS hosted, in collaboration with the provincial BAP and the University of Bari, a summer school on participative planning, which focused on designing the new Provincial Territorial Coordination Plan (PTCP). The workshop aimed to constitute a platform for territorial partnership contributing to the first strategic framework for the plan. The summer school will be repeated in 2012, with a greater focus on the regeneration of the ex-distillery site. This is connected to a new project that the GOS management is submitting for funding: a permanent forum for the regeneration of the old distillery (FRED 2012), reviving the forum created by a civic initiative in 1991. The Urban Laboratory aims to play an active role in a participative regeneration process of the area, proposing a calendar of activities and events, including workshops on industrial archaeology, photography, participative storytelling about the neighbourhood, documentary film, documentation and archiving of the urban transformation, lectures, guided tours and theatrical animation. GOS is committed to playing a consistent role, animating integrated and participative sustainable urban development in the local context, demonstrating the capacity of the Bollenti Spiriti programme to stimulate young, innovative and creative energies in the region to produce social change. On the other hand, the prospects of sustainability in terms of revenues from activities and support from local stakeholders and residents are still very uncertain, leaving open issues with regard to the final achievement of its objectives.

Fig. 6 Summer school and workers on the Bollenti Spiriti building site Is sustainability possible? A great number of local variables affect the possibility of success of the 150 Urban Laboratories (and the 600 Principi Attivi) in terms of their economic sustainability, including the issue of the coordination and diversification of the offer throughout the region to avoid over- lapping and redundancy. This is why the Dolente Spiriti managing team is implementing the next two steps of the programme, which are seen as necessary to consolidate the self- sufficiency of the projects and improve their programming capacity. The first is the creation of a Resource Centre, whose role is to help all the stakeholders of the regional programme to find their role and market, providing consultancy, tutoring, marketing resources and orientation on funding opportunities. The management of the centre has been contracted to an external organisation, the Fitzcarraldo Association of Turin. The second measure is to financially support the diversification of services, equipment upgrades and bottom-up initiatives, which may be fundamental for the survival of the many Urban Laboratories launched in the region. The general outcome of the Bollenti Spiriti programme appears extremely convincing as regards the approach instilled in the territorial stakeholders, which is based on great transparency and a collaborative attitude, is strong on inclusiveness and social solidarity, and uses smart communication channels. The participative approach is promoted as a substantial planning practice and not as a mere consensus creation and marketing instrument. More problematic is the actual feedback from the field, as demonstrated by the variety of difficulties encountered by the young project teams facing real practice, in particular in their relationship with local administrations and in the ability of municipalities to respond to new challenges and procedures. Nevertheless the programme has demonstrated the capacity to induce transformation and innovation. The managing team contributes its solid capacity to analyse, to learn from experience and to adapt to new procedures. A significant strength is the ability to coordinate a collaborative network organisation. Bollenti Spiriti, which started as a sectoral programme, has in some aspects become a ‘movement’ involving thousands of young creative players in the project of creating common visions for the territory. The objective of activating 150 Urban Laboratories at once is an ambitious one, and the issue of the future sustainability of the newly created social centres is a big conundrum. The region’s approach is to step up support for their development as a network and to foster the sustainable and cohesive growth of the territory by creating common tools and platforms, to improve the collaborative capacity of the different projects instead of speculating on individual competitiveness.