Economics and finance of territorial sustainability and well-being

Production systems and territories are called upon to respond to epochal events, such as climate change, the loss of biodiversity, the excessive consumption of natural resources, the ever-increasing need for supplies from clean energy sources, the excessive production of waste materials, robotisation, mass migrations, etc., which impose inevitable transition paths at both a local and global level.
The growing complexity of these phenomena poses increasingly arduous challenges that require multidisciplinary and transversal approaches in order to provide the appropriate tools for interventions aimed at the social, environmental and economic dimensions of territorial systems. Internal and external balances depend, in turn, on the dynamics of these systemic dimensions and their interconnections. Systemic balances are the basis of the concept of sustainability, an essential requirement for preserving the future of territories by ensuring their survival. The aforementioned changes are severely compromising the sustainability of systems and highlight the urgent need for interventions aimed at making territorial systems resilient, a fundamental characteristic to allow a continuous and constant redefinition of social, environmental and economic balances in time and space. This means that social and economic actors, who through their choices determine the fate of these systems, must be able to promptly and comprehensively undertake adaptation paths, activate measures aimed at mitigating risks and develop the capacity to react to unexpected exogenous shocks.
In response to these scenarios, the European Commission, alongside the Multiannual Financial Framework 2021-2027, has designated the extraordinary and ambitious NextGenerationEU plan that allocates approximately 800 billion euros. Almost all of the resources are channeled to the member states through the “Recovery and Resilience Facility” Plan, interpreted at national level with the National Recovery and Resilience Plans (PNRR). They insist in the national system on guidelines that, regardless of the type of territorial/sectoral system, impose paths aimed at territorial convergence and the so-called twin transitions: environmental and digital.
The CdDR aims to develop highly qualified skills to serve the implementation of the Italian PNRR, and in line with the National Research Program (PNR) 2021-2027, with a specific focus on the economic and financial sustainability of systems and territories. This is an educational offer developed on two main themes.
The first theme concerns the development of multidisciplinary skills aimed at analyzing social, environmental, economic-financial and legal sustainability in order to provide, in compliance with internal and community regulatory sources, as well as with the overarching constitutional principles and international treaties, solutions for sustainable development through the use of territorial/sectoral models and quantitative approaches that best approximate the various transitions. The second theme insists on the development of skills aimed at developing mathematical-statistical quantitative methods and tools, as well as economic policy, which must serve and facilitate the real implementation of the territorial development models referred to in the first thematic direction.
Both themes are, therefore, complementary and reciprocal. This reciprocity is to the benefit of the interdisciplinarity referred to in the PNR 2021-2027. Leveraging the latter, another transversal element concerns the type of research projects that will be approved. In fact, they will be in line with the Mission-Oriented Research and Innovation Policy (MOIP) approach, the assumption of which is that they are oriented towards the pursuit of innovative processes which will not only be measured in intensity but also in the direction pursued. It must be guided by the trajectories of the ambitious major missions outlined by European macro-policies (e.g. Green Deal, Horizon Europe missions, EU's digital strategy, etc.) and by the 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) set out in the United Nations 2030 Agenda. This strategic framework allows for a synergic interconnection of the objectives of horizontal policies such as research and innovation, training, skills, apprenticeship, with vertical ones such as environment, energy, work, etc. (Mazzucato, 2018).

The CdDR was designed with the aim of responding to the multiple transitions that are taking place at local and global level. It is based on general and specific objectives. The general objectives derive from the need to offer responses to territorial systems as a whole, trying to pursue wide-ranging impacts on the territories as configured by European policies and the United Nations 2030 Agenda. They can be summarized as follows:

• Contribute to the full completion of the environmental and digital transitions within the deadlines and trajectories defined by the European Green Deal, the EU's digital strategy and the United Nations 2030 Agenda;
• Contribute to the creation of territorial networks in order to activate reciprocal contamination effects (spillover) between territorial actors and reduce territorial gaps;
• Establish a direct channel of dialogue and exchange with production entities (public and private), given the industrial characterization of the proposal, to activate innovation processes aimed at completing transitions.

The specific objectives, instead, concern the specific measures and declinations of the CdDR proposal within the framework of the general objectives. In the case of this proposal, reference is made to the following specific objectives:

• Creation of a professional figure who possesses advanced and complex skills, in line with the new professional profiles adhering to the needs of the new geography of work (territory, sector, profession) aimed at completing transitions;
• Create multifaceted professional skills capable of guiding public and private organizations to seize the multiple opportunities arising from a dynamic and constantly evolving context, so as to achieve their resilience and, consequently, that of territorial systems;
• Create professional figures who are able to capitalise on the results of research funded by the PNRR (Extended Partnerships, Territorial Ecosystems, National Champions, etc.) through their action in universities, spin-offs, companies, public administrations;
• Reduce the gap between the third level training skills offered by universities and what is required by the business world and public administrations;
• Increase the permanence of highly qualified professionals in the Southern territory in order to contribute to the reduction of territorial gaps, as well as activate territorial repercussions for the benefit of social inclusion.

Expected teachings

• Linguistics
• Informatics
• Research and knowledge management
• Research systems and funding systems
• Valorisation of research results and intellectual property
• Sustainable Finance
• Geography of inequalities
• Environment and health protection
• Digitalization of territorial systems: focus on rural areas 
• Panel data econometrics
• Economics and Politics of Welfare
• Mathematical and statistical methods for economics, finance, environment
• Economics and environmental assessment

Other educational activities

• Laboratory activities
• Seminars

All Master's Degrees

The educational path followed by the PhD students will provide them with interdisciplinary skills to serve current and future transitions. They will apply the knowledge acquired by embodying the spirit of the PNR 2021-2027 which places people at the center of innovation processes driven by research results (“human-centric innovation”). The PhD students will be able to interpret the different levels of the Social Readiness Level (SRL) index which associates the different degrees of Technology Readiness Level (TRL) with the adequate human resources to be able to implement them, capitalizing on the ability to express, in synergy, horizontal and vertical skills.
The PhDs will seize the job opportunities resulting from the major changes brought about by the PNRR investments: they will be the so-called Research facilitators for innovation who will have the task of transferring the results of the research from the bodies in which it is developed to the territorial production systems. They will find job opportunities as economists, experts in transitions in the broad sense, risk managers, legal advisors in the implementation phase of the transition and in the preparation of the necessary negotiation tools, financial data analysts and developers of analysis methodologies, as well as policies within public and private organizations of various kinds: universities; public/private research centers, public administrations, large companies, spinoffs, start-ups and other dynamic small and medium-sized enterprises with high innovation potential.
The versatility of their profiles does not limit opportunities to one or a limited set of job roles, but rather makes them suitable for the dynamism and unpredictability of changes in the labor market. In fact, they themselves will be the main proponents of the context dynamics, proposing development trajectories and becoming the main actors of the resulting changes. In fact, they will be able to contribute to reducing the current technological gap between labor supply and demand, in turn facilitating the hiring of the most innovative professional figures that the labor market offers today.