Certomà, Chiara | Italy
Chiara Certomà is Assistant Professor in political-economic geography at the University of Turin; and Research Affiliate at the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies - Pisa and the Centre for Sustainable Development at Ghent University. Recently, she has been recipient of a SPIN Grant at theCa’Foscari University of Venice with a research project on Critical Digital Social Innovation and Urban Governance (DSI4EU) (2020); and of a EU Marie-Curie grant for the project “Crowdsourcing Urban Sustainability Governance” (2017-2019). Her research focuses on innovative forms of urban governance&planning in the context of pressing environmental challenges and the digital revolution. Amongst the other, she published, lectured and gave academic presentations on critical digital social innovation, crowdsourcing and participatory urban planning, political gardening and socio-environmental justice.
Chiara has multidisciplinary background and research experience in philosophy of science, human and cultural geography, sustainability theory and urban studies. She hold a degree in Philosophy of Science from the University of Rome La Sapienza (2003); a Master in Environmental Communication from the University of Pisa, (2004); and a PhD in Political Science from the Sant’Anna School in Pisa (2009). She has been research fellow at Sant’Anna School (2010-2019); honorary visiting researcher at the University of Waikato, Hamilton (2019); guest professor on Spatial and Environmental Justice and Urban Gardens Planning at the BOKU University of Vienna (2016); visiting researcher at The Open University Geography Department, UK (2007); and Rachel Carson Fellow at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, LMU, Germany (2012). Information on research and publications can be retrieved here https://crowdusg.net/.
Project at IAS-STS: Digital Social Innovations in Urban Governance
The research project explores the socio-political and cultural implications of the Digital Social Innovation (DSI) initiatives in the context of European cities. The diversified world of DSI encompass pathbreaking forms of collective agency that infiltrate social organizations and (government, research and business) institutions; and affect the traditional forms and function(ing) of governance, including participatory processes. However, it remains rather obscure what are the place-specific characters that support or obstacles digital innovators’ agency; and why some cities seem to better feed their emergence than others. Therefore, the project aims to explore the characters of digital innovators communities, their potentiality and capability to (re)produce conditions that reinforce urban innovation-supporting context. On the other hand, it analyses the characters of supporting urban ecosystems and the specific governance models that provide an adequate context for the emergence, persistence and capability of digital social innovators to effectively change the city hardware and software.
Contact: chiara [punkt] certoma
santannapisa [punkt] it
Selected Publications
C.Certomà, M. Dyer, F. Rizzi and L.Pocatilu (2017) (eds.) Citizen Empowerment and Innovation in the Data-Rich City, Springer, New York
C.Certomà (2020) “Digital Social Innovation and Urban Space. A critical geography agenda”, Urban Planning, 5/4, 8-19
C.Certomà, F.Corsini, M. Frey (2020) “Hyperconnected, receptive and do-it-yourself city. An investigation into the European imaginary of crowdsourcing for urban governance”, Technology in Society, 61
C.Certomà, L.Chelleri and B. Notteboom (2020) “The ‘fluid governance’ of urban public spaces. Insights from informal planning practices in Rome”, Urban Studies, 57/5, 976-995
C.Certomà, F. Rizzi and F. Corsini (2015) “Crowdsourcing urban sustainability. Data, people and technologies in participatory governance”, Futures, 74, 93-106