PRIN

Titolo programma / Ente finanziatore: PRIN 2020 -MUR 

Titolo DeMa -Decision-Making in the Age of Emergencies. New Paradigms in Recognition and Protection of Rights 

Coordinatore di unità Emma A. Imparato

Data inizio 25/05/2022

Data fine 30/10/2025

Link

Codice Prin_2020_Imparato

Descrizione del progetto: How do constitutional democracies meet new challenges? In the last decades, a sequence of emergencies (international terrorism, economic and financial turmoil, pandemic or epidemic waves) has put pressure on
democratic governments. These have also been confronted by the strengthening of two major trends originating in the 20th century, i.e. the decreasing national dimensions of law, on one hand, and the technological revolution, on the other.
New decision-makers and decision-making processes emerged, affecting the core of contemporary democracies, that is the regulation of rights and freedoms.
Given the proliferation of decision-makers, becomes very important to verify which bodies and branches govern and manage the emergencies. What are the methods, purposes and motivations in their decision-making process?
The project identifies five categories of cross cutting “rationales” interacting in this dynamic, complex environment. They all enter into the decisional process of States and international organizations, who are thus exposed to their combined effects:
a) the political rationale: with the raise of democratic governments, the people’s representatives are constitutionally endowed with the main responsibilities in regulating rights – and so protecting them;
b) the judicial rationale: the 20th century witnessed an exponential rise of the juridification of disputes, with a huge power wielded by courts; in the present complex scenario, courts maintain a crucial role as guardians of rights;
c) the economic rationale: how does the economy impacts on rights has been a crucial welfare state issue; in recent decades, economic actors have acquired decision-making powers of their own too;
d) the scientific rationale: emergencies produce the pressing need to rely on scientific expertise, how does the legislative, the administrative, and the judicial process gets it and acts on it?
e) the technological rationale: human and non-human decision-making are interrelated; the use of technology incorporating automation does not exclude human intervention, which should be present in any case.
The research examines the impact that the age of emergencies has on rights and freedoms, and to so it advances the comparative study of these interrelated five “rationales” affecting the decisional processes in contemporary democracies, thus recognizing the complex nature of the challenges raised by emergencies.
The research purpose is to map the distance between the founding constitutional principles of our society and their reformulation, adaptation, and balancing under emergencies. The focus on the decision-making processes and their impact on rights and freedoms is justified because rights and freedoms are at the core of the constitutionalism, and consequently at the center of the legal systems based on the separation of powers and the protection of individual rights.

Titolo programma / Ente finanziatore: PRIN 2022 -MUR 

Titolo Italy's energy governance in the global economy and politics: the role of natural gas in the national energy transition

Coordinatore di unità Simone Selva

Data inizio 30/09/2022

Data fine 26/01/2026

Link

Codice 2022XYSH4K

Descrizione del progetto: Italy was one of the oil consuming Countries that most of all suffered from the consequences of the oil shocks of the 1970s, because of the shortage of national oil production and the growing dependence on oil imports. The oil shocks made the national energy security crucial to the Country’s political agenda and led to the drawing up of a new national energy strategy for the diversification of supply sources, among which the natural gas played a pivotal role. Since then, Italy has become one of Europe's biggest importers of natural gas. Italy has no nuclear capability, only two operational coal power plants, and gets only 20 percent of its energy from renewable sources, while natural gas accounts for approximately 45% of the total national energy production. In the last 10 years, Italy’s gas consumption has remained constant, while gas production has been sharply reduced, so that in 2021 natural gas imports has accounted for 90% of Italy’s gas supply. This research project is an innovative effort to investigate the interplay between the national and international dimensions of Italy’s energy strategy in the decades that followed the oil shocks, so as to understand how the Country has become increasingly dependent on gas imports. The basic assumption of the project is that as a result of the oil shocks energy has ceased to be a simple commodity, subject to normal market logic, but has become a major political issue that fells within the scope of national security policy and affects national and international politics.The key research questions that will be addressed by this project are the following:
1) The national dimension: what decision-making process has made natural gas crucial in the national energy production?
2) The international dimension: where and how has Italy decided to get natural gas?3) The operational dimension: what role has Eni (Italy’s State-owned energy company) played in the global natural gas market?
All of them are strictly interconnected issues, as they are parts of a single major problem: the national energy security (which is still of crucial importance, as clearly shown by the consequences of the current Russian-Ukrainian war). The access to some hitherto unavailable archival sources, as well as a truly interdisciplinary approach of the research units, whose members are scholars of history of international relations, economic history and contemporary history, will allow the project to strengthen the conclusions reached by existing literature and offer a most original prospect on a crucial aspect of the recent Italian political and economic history, the Country’s growing reliance on foreign energy supplies. The capacity of the research units to move across disciplinary boundaries is guaranteed by the different background and expertise of the scholars involved, while the credibility of the project is assured by the fact that the research units have a longstanding history of pioneering research in these fields.

Titolo programma / Ente finanziatore: PRIN 2022 -MUR 

Titolo Itineraries of Philosophy and Science from Baghdad to Florence: Albert the Great, his Sources and his Legacies

Coordinatore di unità Antonella Sannino

Data inizio 01/10/2023

Data fine 18/10/2025        Data Proroga   28/02/2026

Link  https://www.bphv.eu/en/quotations

Codice PRIN 20225LFCMZ

Codice ERC SH - Social Sciences and Humanities

Descrizione del progetto: In medieval philosophy, theology, and science, Albert the Great (d. 1280; henceforth: AtG) represents the highest example of
reliance on authors of different cultural provenances, and his multifarious references to sources granted him paramount influence in coeval and subsequent European thought. Building on previous research, the project aims at a systematic analysis of the multi-cultural background of the philosophical, theological and scriptural works of AtG, and of the impact of his use of sources in contemporary and later authors, circles, and intellectual trends. Research on a series of representative test-cases chosen among the main disciplinary and doctrinal areas of AtG’s production will lead to:
A) a full appreciation of the wide range of Greek, Latin, Arabic, and Hebrew and other oriental sources employed by Albert in his writings, a detailed explanation of the finality of this intertextual and intercultural strategy, and a study of the wide resonance in subsequent authors of the repository of sources which AtG made available to Latinity, with respect to university institutions (faculties of arts), ecclesiastic academic centers (Dominican school of Cologne), and non-academic contexts (cultural environments of Dante Alighieri), involving pseudo-epigraphical writings, vernacular productions, and encyclopedias;
B) a new interpretation of the crucial phase of the Middle Ages in which AtG lived (13th century) from an intercultural perspective, with the philosophy of Greek origin playing the pivotal role of rational common ground at the intersection of the three Mediterranean cultures, across dogmatic barriers and political fluctuations;
C) an attempt to apply AtG's model of intercultural philosophical dialogue to contemporary concerns, with special regards to issues
like the theory of the alleged “clash of civilizations”, the debate about the “cultural roots” of Europe, and the project of a sustainable, inclusive, and tolerant society, respectful of human diversity and attentive to environmental needs.
The most up-to-date technologies in digital humanities and computer science will assist the historical and philological research of the project by planning and start building an online inventory of the sources quoted by AtG in his works, in the form of a searchable repository of citations. In its final form, the project’s front-end will also contain codicological and bibliographical tools, as well as devices for facilitating the exchange of ideas between experts of AtG and of medieval philosophy in general. This technical apparatus aims to become progressively a full-fledged open-access portal on the life, works, and thought of AtG and on his fortune until nowadays. 

Titolo programma / Ente finanziatore: PRIN 2022 -MUR 

Titolo A decision support system for circular economy transition

Coordinatore di unità Roberta Arbolino

Data inizio 01/11/2023

Data fine  28/02/2026

Link  

Codice PRIN 2022JZLL7J – “H-SMA-CE

Codici ERC SH7_5, SH7_6, SH7_7

Abstract: The project H-SMA-CE defines a Circular Economy model for improving both liveability and attractiveness of Historical Small Towns (HST) (population less than 5,000 inhabitants) and, thus, boosting their socioeconomic development. H-SMA-CE provides a Decision Support System (DSS) oriented to support policy makers to optimize the planning of waste management and, energy efficiency in HST.
H-SMA-CE phases:

· Understanding: The project relies on an in-depth analysis of literature (A) - concerning Circular Economy (CE), Urban Metabolism (UM), Urban Symbiosis (US) methods/tools, best practices and Circularity metrics – and territorial context (B) – considering flows, chains and actors involved in a representative HST. The research provides a detailed description of the HST according to main dimensions defined by literature. Data gathered by both dataset and field analysis will converge as input in the building of a DSS, in which: (A) allows to define the scenario to be reached in terms of circularity while (B) contributes to the database definition.

· Evaluating: For each intervention in the CE solution proposal, focused on waste flows and their potential use for energy generation, average costs and benefit will be estimated (performed on the reference HST).

Proposal for optimal interventions will be formulated based on the research carried on in the previous steps and obtained by maximizing efficiency without accounting for external limits (i.e., budget constraint). Subsequently, the construction of set of CE indexes allows to identify circularity gaps of the current (linear) system that might become opportunities - circularity potentials - to be implemented through investments. Finally, a multi-objective optimisation analysis will allow to establish the optimal set of interventions precisely required in the HST to optimise its CE levels.

· Simulating: These results will be presented through a spreadsheet based DSS model, allowing to identify the optimal set of intervention for fostering HSTs transition (and theit average costs and benefits). A differentiated evaluation of benefits for both private and public stakeholders allows to define the required public financial incentives for plan realization. By modifying the parameters describing the features of the small town (population, presence of facilities, main activities...), the model will allow HST decision-makers to receive twofold targeted information: i) an assessment of both CE level of the HST and interventions required to reach the circular scenario; ii) information on the realization cost and benefits of the necessary investments. For testing will use the “borgo di Taurasi” (Campania Region), a representative Italian HST. H-SMA-CE results will be disseminated for scholars/academics, governments, policymakers, enterprises, consultants.

Titolo programma / Ente finanziatore: PRIN 2020 -MUR 

Titolo MOBS – “Mobilities, solidarities and imaginaries across the borders: the mountain, the sea, the urban and the rural as spaces of transit and encounters

Coordinatore di unità Adele Del Guercio

Data inizio 19/05/2022

Data fine  30/07/2026

Link  

CUP C61B22002110001

Codice PRIN 2020TELSM8

Codici ERC SH3_6, SH3_2, SH3_3

Abstract: Focusing on the Italian context, the project considers the porosity of the national territory, deeply interconnected at a transnational level, in which migrants on the move with different legal status and social positioning give shape to forms of temporary dwelling and mobility, despite the multiplication of borders and boundaries along lines of colour, race, citizenship, gender and class. In the Italian spaces of transit, profoundly transformed by the effects of Covid-19 pandemic, migrants' mobilities are shaped by mechanisms of containment and multiple filtering, processes of production and reproduction of labour that go often beyond national borders and by the strive for autonomy, fuelled by social representations, imaginaries on the future and narratives of the past which steer choices and biographies. A crucial role in this articulation of mobilities is played by the heterogeneous set of practices of solidarity towards and with migrants: in the urban fabric of the city; around the hotspots, camps and other border apparatuses; in the Mediterranean search and rescue area; within digital platforms and networks; across the alpine passages to northern Europe; in the stratified labour markets in which migrant workforce is employed, as in the agriculture, logistics, delivery and services sector. 
Therefore, the project aims to investigate the social production of porosity and of new imaginaries along four different spaces of transit - the mountain, the sea, the urban and the rural area - looking at the encounters between migrants on the move and solidarity networks and actions.

Titolo programma / Ente finanziatore: PRIN 2022 -MUR 

Titolo Conflict management and resolution in the widerMediterranean: comparing practices between Western and non-Western actors

Coordinatore di unità Irene Constantini

Data inizio 30/09/2023

Data fine  28/02/2026

Link  

CUP C53D23002910006

Codice PRIN 2022K8L99X

Codici ERC SH2_3, SH2_5, SH2_6

Abstract: This project studies how the presence and the practices of non-Western actors in conflict-ridden countries affect strategies and conflict management practices adopted by Western countries, and intends to uncover the main consequences that emerge from such encounters in crisis situations. Within this overall scope, the project addresses two gaps in the literature: first, it overcomes the widely used yet little problematized notion of the failure/crisis of peacebuilding and it recognizes that room for theoretical, empirical and policy advancement stands in looking at how innovation may emerge from failure/crisis. Second, while the encounter between Western and non-Western actors is increasingly seen as an angle for rejuvenating the debate on conflict management and resolution, there is a lack of empirical evidence on ways in which this occurs. Overlaps, synergies and/or divergences are often assumed rather than assessed, with the consequence that little can be said concerning Western and non-Western partaking into the paradigm of stabilization of conflict-affected contexts. To overcome such limitations this study is grounded in both a reassessed conceptual and theoretical framework and sustained by solid and novel empirical evidence, which will enable the PI and the research team to generate original theoretical and policy reflection.

The geographical focus of the study will be the wider Mediterranean, and the non-Western actors considered will be Russia, China, and Turkey. This area testifies the highest number of interventions in conflict and crisis situations, paralleled by the dense interconnection of multiple actors (Western and non-Western) while standing among Italy's and Europe's priorities. Within this geographical scope, this research project will integrate multiple steps and methods: first, the conceptual and theoretical reflection on the encounter and comparison between Western and non-Western actors will be accompanied by an extensive collection and analysis of data at the macro level, to situate and problematize their contribution to conflict management and resolution; second, the study of non-Western practices will be carried out through case study research, incorporating both the national and sub-national level, interviews and surveys at the local level; last, strategies of adaptation by Western actors will also be captured through the use of Delphi Surveys with Italian and European policy-makers operating in conflict management and resolution. In all, the project will generate a novel theoretical twist in the understanding of the status of conflict management and resolution and trigger timely and relevant policy reflections on how Italy and Europe can best position themselves across conflict-ridden contexts.

Titolo programma / Ente finanziatore: PRIN 2022 -MUR 

Titolo AdministrativeGeography and the "TerritorialQuestion" in Italy: Weaknesses in the Administrative Framework and Possible Solutions

Coordinatore di unità Floriana Galluccio

Data inizio 30/09/2023

Data fine  28/02/2026

Link  

CUP C53D23004830006

Codice PRIN 2022HZ3PHZ

Codici ERC SH7_1, SH7_7, SH7_8

Abstract: 
Stopping and reversing the "Italian decline" (the now thirty-year absence of growth) is the strategic purpose of the PNRR and more generally the first aim of the government action. Discussing the relationship between administrative geography and the "Italian territorial question" introduces an original point of view on the strategies to be adopted. In our opinion there is in fact a very close relationship between this absence of growth and the "territorial question", e the existence of strong development differentials between central and marginal areas and between the Italian "constitutional" regions. These territorial and regional differentials are found in the different economic efficiency, factors productivity, and endowment of each type of capital. They consequently lower the likelihood of a shared governance. while increasing the probability and intensity of political-social conflicts, as demonstrated by the recent republican history.

Although it has been variously analysed, historicized and correlated to many economic, political and sociological factors, this condition has never been related to the territorial form of administrative districts and its model. On the contrary, we believe that the shape of administrative boundaries is among the direct causes of the "Italian territorial question", and therefore of the difficulties of our Country in the last decades. During the republican age the administrative action was in fact marked by a progressive "territorial inefficiency", i.e., diseconomies and obstacles to efficiency due to the incongruity between administrative regulation and economic and social processes as in concrete they are carried out on the territory.

The objectives of this project therefore are to (1) evaluate the "territorial efficiency of the current Italian administrative model, (2) identify its elements of "territorial inefficiency", indicating their nature and consequences; and finally (3) provide, for each of these critical elements, the possible solutions, placed within a coherent framework of reform of the administrative levels.

Testo italiano

Arrestare e invertire il declino italiano, cioè l'ormai trentennale assenza di crescita, è la finalità strategica del PNRR e dell'azione di governo. Discutere il rapporto fra Geografia amministrativa e "questione territoriale italiana" introduce un punto di vista originale a proposito delle strategie da adottare. A nostro giudizio vi è infatti nel nostro Paese una relazione assai stretta fra questa assenza di crescita e la "questione territoriale", ossia l'esistenza di differenziali di sviluppo forti e caratterizzati fra le aree centrali e marginali e fra le regioni. Questi differenziali territoriali e regionali si manifestano per dotazione di ogni tipo di capitale, efficienza economica, produttività dei fattori, generano minori probabilità di governance condivise e, come dimostra la recente storia repubblicana, una maggiore probabilità e una maggiore intensità di conflitti politico-sociali

Questa condizione è stata variamente analizzata, storicizzata e correlata a molti fattori di natura economica e sociologica, ma mai alla forma territoriale delle circoscrizioni amministrative. A nostro giudizio invece proprio il ritaglio amministrativo è fra le cause dirette e salienti della "questione territoriale italiana", e quindi delle difficoltà del sistema-Paese. L'azione amministrativa è stata infatti contrassegnata, in età repubblicana, da una storica e progressiva inefficienza territoriale, intendendo per inefficienza territoriale le diseconomie e gli ostacoli all'efficienza dovuti all'incongruenza della regolazione amministrativa rispetto ai processi economici e sociali per come in concreto, ormai da lungo tempo, si sono realizzati e si realizzano sul territorio.

Obiettivi di questo progetto sono perció: (1) valutare l'efficienza territoriale dell'attuale ritaglio amministrativo italiano: (2) individuare in termini specifici gli elementi di inefficienza territoriale in esso presenti, indicandone natura e conseguenze; e infine (3) fornire, per ciascuno di questi elementi critici, le possibili soluzioni, collocate all'interno di un coerente quadro di riforma dei livelli amministrativi.

Titolo programma / Ente finanziatore: PRIN 2022 -MUR 

Titolo SISEA / SymbolicInequalityat Work: genderedexclusion and imaginaries of empowerment in Southeast Asia

Coordinatore di unità Pietro Paolo Masina

Data inizio 01/10/2023

Data fine  28/02/2026

Link  

CUP C53D23005890006

Codice PRIN 2022S3FSZE

Codici ERC SH3_2, SH3_8, SH3_5

Abstract: This multidisciplinary research observes practices and imaginaries of inequality in Southeast Asia through the superimposed lens of gender, labour and ethnicity. The project aims to answer a fundamental question about the acceptance, the enforcement and sometimes, the upturning of growing structures of existential inequality in the world from a Southeast Asian standpoint. We assume that imagination and symbolic imaginaries play a fundamental role in the acceptance or transformation of unequal conditions of life and ask how inequality is thought, imagined and practiced in fast-developing societies that are otherwise proning equality in political and moral discourse. We envisage a detailed bottom-up analysis of how the three main social constructs of gender, labour and ethnicity are effective in creating, maintaining or dismantling inequality in specific situations of marginality in Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia.

Three post-doc researchers are hired to carry out a substantial part of the fieldwork enquiries. A meaningful part of the budget is devoted to on-site contracts for local research partners, which respects equality in the production of knowledge. The chosen methodology implies a bottom-up approach through ethnography, the collection of recorded and locally written material and in some cases, the analysis of both oral and written documents. Presence on-site and collaboration with local colleagues, he trainees is essential to its implementation.
 

Titolo programma / Ente finanziatore: PRIN 2017 -MIUR 

Titolo Revolutionary genealogies: historical discourses, construction of experience and political choices in the revolutions of the Modern Age/ Genealogie rivoluzionarie: discorsi storici, costruzione dell'esperienza e scelte politiche nelle rivoluzioni di età moderna

Coordinatore di unità Luigi Mascilli Migliorini / Raffaele Nocera

Data inizio 01/01/2019

Data fine  31/12/2022

Link  

CUP 

Codice PRIN 2017ZXEMWM 

Codici ERC SH6_8, SH6_9, SH6_13

Abstract: The project aims to rethink the rich and complex topic of "repetition" in the history of revolutions of the Modern Age. It will pay serious attention to how significant it was for historical actors to recall past events when they had to come to terms with the imponderability of the future in the face of very difficult choices. The project will focus on the English Civil wars, on the American and French revolutions, on the Italiansister republics and the birth of Haiti and then on the Spanish-American revolutions - as well as the civil wars and revolutions in 19th century Europe - in order to evaluate the (ab)use in national political discourses of referring to the previous political experiences. The project will insist on the example of the repetition concerning political discourses and revolutionary actions, in order to suggest how new genealogies were created, new political discourses were defined, new political cultures were configured. The project will break significantly new ground linking new perspectives of research with the most topical current trends in the international historiography. The aim is that of reintroducing into the Italian debate the theme, which was rather left by the wayside in recent years, of the revolutions and consequently counter-revolutions.
Testo italiano
Il progetto si propone di ripensare il ricco e complesso tema della “ripetizione” del fatto storico con riferimento alle rivoluzioni di età moderna, XVI-XIX secolo. Porrà attenzione a quanto fosse frequente il ricorso all’analogia con il passato di altre rivoluzioni per prospettare il futuro in un difficile presente. Il progetto farà centro sulle rivoluzioni inglesi, su quelle d’America e di Francia, sulle repubbliche sorelle
italiane e su quella nera di Haiti, nonché sulle rivoluzioni dell’America latina come su quelle dell’Europa della prima metà del XIX secolo per misurare l’uso e l’abuso nei discorsi politici del riferimento al trascorso rivoluzionario. Lo studio del modo in cui, d’un lato all’altro dello schieramento politico, verrà fatto ricorso al passato permetterà un’altra prospettiva di lettura delle genealogie rivoluzionarie e dei
discorsi politici e consentirà di meglio leggere la nascita di nuove culture nazionali, anche nella loro dimensione contro-rivoluzionaria. Il progetto vorrebbe conseguire importanti risultati correlandosi ai più promettenti indirizzi di ricerca in campo internazionale e si pone l’obiettivo di reintrodurre nel dibattito storiografico italiano il tema delle rivoluzioni di età moderna che negli ultimi tempi è stato molto messo in disparte.

Titolo programma / Ente finanziatore: PRIN 2017 -MIUR 

Titolo Sacrifice in the Europe of the religious conflicts and in the early modern world: comparisons, interpretations, legitimation

Coordinatore di unità Girolamo Imbruglia / Riccardo Rosolino

Data inizio 06/02/2019

Data fine  31/12/2024

Link  

CUP 

Codice PRIN 20179JL8WR

Codici ERC SH6_7, SH6_9, SH6_12

Abstract: The project proposes to study certain aspects of religious sacrifice from the Late Middle Ages to the Enlightenment. It will compare various European Christian denominations following the Reformation, broadening its scope to the colonial world as well, especially to Christian reflections on Islam and on Asia. Utilizing a wide spectrum of source material (biblical comments, normative texts, rites, images, philosophical and anthropological reflections, histories of ancient Christianity, missionary correspondences), the research group intends to focus on the language of sacrifice in the modern era (the presence of a scapegoat, the ritual role of blood, the use of violence) and will concentrate on the following themes: the persistent idea of holy war and the use of biblical figures as examples of sacrifice in religious conflict in Europe; early modern Catholic sanctity, its ideological use and the rewriting of the bodily sacrifice; the Protestant martyrology and the idea of sacrifice in the Radical Reformation; the birth of the history of religions and of the anthropological comparison and their reflection on sacrifice; the view on the colonial world, especially India, through missionary accounts on sat (the ritual immolation of the widow on her deceased husband’s funeral pyre).