On March 16th, 2026, the new Honours Programme “City Science for Transformative Urban Futures” kicks off at Craft DAStU
Politecnico di Milano, Campus Leonardo, Sede CRAFT, Ed. 11B, Via Ampère, 20 – Milano
The programme is an advanced extracurricular training course addressed to 20 selected Master’s students at the Politecnico di Milano, admitted through a competitive application process.
The Programme
The Honours Programme offers a unique learning experience at the intersection of research, public policy and urban innovation.
It combines:
- theoretical lectures by academics and experts,
- study trips to leading European City Science cases,
- applied research and project work,
- direct interaction with Italian public administrations and European city networks.
Students will work on City Science Initiatives (CSI) as an emerging field of practice, learning how cities integrate scientific knowledge, data and interdisciplinary research into decision-making processes and policy design.
At the core of the programme are partnerships established with international and Italian cities, which take active part in the learning experience.
The programme hence includes a study trip to the City of Amsterdam, where a City Science Office and research–policy interfaces are already well established. This experience will be complemented by intensive work with the Italian partner cities: Reggio Emilia, Pavia, Brescia, Palermo e l’Unione della Romagna Faentina, exploring how to develop similar initiatives in their own contexts.
Through this process, students will also work closely with two major institutional networks:
- Eurocities, one of the most important European city networks,
- ANCI Lombardia, representing Italian municipalities.
Open Lectures
The Honours Programme also features a series of open lectures, open to the wider academic community.
The programme will officially begin with an inaugural lecture on 16 March at 15:30 by Vanesa Castán Broto (University of Sheffield), titled “Cities, complexity, politics, and knowledge” - more information at link
Info
Coordinators: Valeria Fedeli, Anna Moro, Alessandro Coppola
Contacts: ilaria.tosoni@polimi.it , craft-dastu@polimi.it