Economics and finance of territorial sustainability and well-being

Production systems and territories are currently called upon to respond to epochal events—such as climate change, biodiversity loss, the overconsumption of natural resources, the increasing necessity for clean energy supplies, excessive waste generation, robotization, and mass migration—which impose inevitable transition pathways at both local and global levels.

The growing complexity of these phenomena poses increasingly arduous challenges that require multidisciplinary approaches to provide adequate tools for interventions addressing the social, environmental, and economic dimensions of territorial systems. The internal and external equilibria of these systems depend, in turn, on the dynamics and interconnections of these dimensions. Systemic equilibria form the foundation of the concept of sustainability, an essential prerequisite for preserving the future of territories and guaranteeing their survival. The aforementioned changes are severely undermining system sustainability, highlighting the urgent need for interventions aimed at making territorial systems resilient—a fundamental characteristic that allows for a continuous and constant redefinition of social, environmental, and economic balances across time and space. This implies that social and economic actors, whose choices determine the fate of these systems, must be capable of promptly and comprehensively undertaking adaptation pathways, implementing risk mitigation measures, and developing response capacities to unexpected exogenous shocks.

In response to these scenarios, the European Union (EU) has outlined its political strategy for the 2024–2029 five-year period, which includes, among other initiatives, the new plan for Europe’s sustainable prosperity and competitiveness. This plan, resulting from the synergy between the Council and the Commission, decisively aims to enhance Europe’s strategic sovereignty and protect its citizens, moving along well-defined guidelines that seek to combine economic prosperity with sustainability. Consequently, the EU intends to launch a new industrial plan to support businesses, promote digital innovation, and accelerate the transition toward a circular economy. However, this economic development aims to leave no one behind: the agenda includes a strong social pillar designed to ensure fairness, support young people, and address skills shortages. Concurrently, it recognizes the urgency of safeguarding the quality of life by protecting biodiversity, food security, and water resources, while offering concrete support to farmers to adapt to climate change.

Against this backdrop, this Doctoral Research Course (CdDR) aims to develop highly qualified competencies to support the implementation of European policies, in alignment with the National Research Programme (PNR) 2026–28, with a specific focus on the economic and financial sustainability of systems and territories. The educational offer is structured around two main thematic pillars.

The first theme concerns the development of multidisciplinary skills aimed at analyzing social, environmental, economic-financial, and legal sustainability. The goal is to provide solutions for sustainable development - in compliance with domestic and EU regulatory sources, as well as overarching constitutional principles and international treaties - through the use of territorial/sectoral models and quantitative approaches that best approximate the various transitions. The second theme focuses on the development of skills related to mathematical-statistical quantitative methods and tools, as well as economic policy, intended to serve and facilitate the actual implementation of the territorial development models outlined in the first thematic pillar.

Both themes are, therefore, complementary and reciprocal. This reciprocity enhances the interdisciplinarity called for in the PNR 2026–28. Leveraging the latter, another cross-cutting element concerns the typology of research projects to be approved. Indeed, they will align with the Mission-Oriented Research and Innovation Policy (MOIP) approach, the premise of which is that they must be oriented toward pursuing innovative processes measured not only by intensity but also by the direction pursued. This direction must be guided by the trajectories of the ambitious grand missions outlined by European macro-policies (e.g., the Green Deal, Horizon Europe missions, the EU's digital strategy, etc.) and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) framed within the United Nations 2030 Agenda. This strategic framework enables a synergistic interconnection between horizontal policy objectives (such as research and innovation, education, skills, and apprenticeships) and vertical ones (such as environment, energy, labor, etc.).

The CdDR has been designed to respond to the multiple transitions occurring at local and global levels. It encompasses both general and specific objectives. The general objectives stem from the need to offer responses to territorial systems as a whole, seeking to achieve broad-ranging impacts on territories as configured by European policies and the UN 2030 Agenda. They can be summarized as follows:

• contribuing to the full realization of environmental and digital transitions within the timeframes and trajectories defined by European policies, such as the new plan for Europe's sustainable prosperity and competitiveness, the European Green Deal, the EU's digital strategy, and the UN 2030 Agenda;
• contributing to the creation of territorial networks to trigger mutual cross-fertilization (spillovers) among territorial actors and reduce territorial disparities;
• establishing a direct channel of dialogue and exchange with productive realities (both public and private)-given the industrial characterization of the proposal-to activate innovation processes aimed at completing the transitions.

The specific objectives, on the other hand, relate to the precise measures and articulations of the CdDR proposal within the framework of the general objectives. In the case of this proposal, reference is made to the following specific goals:

• creating a professional profile possessing advanced and complex skills, in line with new professional roles adapted to the needs of the new geography of labor (territory, sector, profession) aimed at achieving the transitions;
• cultivating versatile professionals capable of guiding public and private organizations to seize the multiple opportunities arising from a dynamic, constantly evolving context, thereby ensuring their resilience and, consequently, that of territorial systems;
• producing professional figures capable of capitalizing on the results of research funded by tools launched by the EU and the Italian Government through their action within universities, spin-offs, enterprises, and public administrations;
• bridging the gap between the third-level higher education competencies offered by universities and the demands of the business world and public administrations;
• increasing the retention of highly qualified professionals within the Southern Italian territory to contribute to the reduction of territorial divides, as well as triggering local impacts to the benefit of social inclusion.

• Linguistics
• Information Technology / Computer Science
• Research and Knowledge Management
• Research Systems and Funding Systems
• Exploitation 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 Policy of Well-being
• Mathematical and Statistical Methods for Economics, Finance, and the Environment
• Environmental Economics and Evaluation

Other Educational Activities (seminars, laboratory and research activities, interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, and transdisciplinary training)

• Laboratory Activities
• Seminars

All Master's Degrees.

The educational pathway followed by PhD candidates will endow them with multidisciplinary skills serving current and future transitions. They will apply the acquired knowledge embodying the spirit of current EU policies, which place people at the center of innovation processes driven by research results ("human-centric innovation"). PhD graduates will be able to interpret the different levels of the Social Readiness Level (SRL) index, which associates appropriate human resources capable of implementing them with varying degrees of Technology Readiness Level (TRL), capitalizing on the ability to express, in synergy, horizontal and vertical competencies.

PhD graduates will seize the employment opportunities arising from the major changes brought about by investments from current European policies: they will act as so-called Research facilitators for innovation, tasked with transferring research results from the organizations where they are developed to territorial production systems. They will find career opportunities as economists, transition experts in a broad sense, risk managers, legal consultants in the implementation phase of the transition and in the drafting of necessary negotiation instruments, financial data analysts, and developers of analytical methodologies and policies within various public and private organizations. These include universities, public/private research centers, public administrations, large enterprises, spin-offs, start-ups, and other dynamic small and medium-sized enterprises with high innovation potential.

The versatility of their profiles does not restrict opportunities to a single or narrow set of career paths; rather, it renders them adaptable to the dynamism and unpredictability of labor market changes. In fact, they will themselves be primary drivers of contextual dynamics, proposing development trajectories and becoming key actors in the resulting changes. Indeed, they will be able to contribute to reducing the current technological gap between labor supply and demand, in turn facilitating the employment of the most innovative professional figures that the labor market offers today.