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The pandemic caused by Covid-19 has tested the resilience of public institutions, already burdened by a deep and complex crisis (political, economic, managerial). This crisis has revealed a discrepancy between the needs expressed by the community and the solutions adopted to satisfy them. This has been accompanied by a progressive worsening of decision-making efficiency and weak implementation capacity in a context of increasing environmental uncertainty. It is in local institutions, in particular, that the greatest problems are revealed, because of many endemic negative factors: political fragmentation, reduced economic resources, new forms of poverty. Against the background of this scenario, our study aims to analyze the reaction of local institutions to the pandemic crisis by looking at both welfare and communication services. The objective is to identify key features in understanding the resilience of municipalities. In other words, their ability to react and adapt to change, which is essential not only to deal with emergencies, such as the pandemic, but also to make the institution itself sustainable. Our interest is focused on a specific dimension of the resilience of the municipalities, related to collaboration with the third sector. The pandemic has shown that the continuous activism of non-profit organizations has allowed for the continuation of many so-called "ordinary" services, as well as the launch of several initiatives aimed at alleviating other social problems. The research has, first of all, an exploratory character that befits a new and still ongoing phenomenon. The basic questions concern the production of local welfare policies by municipalities. The data show different levels of "interventism" and different modes of communication. On this latter point, we observe the presence of significant attention-seeking among Mayors as community builders able, on the one hand, to reinforce the spirit of solidarity and, on the other, to uphold respect for the rules. On the services side, three main models of response to the pandemic emerge, two of which refer to the public-private relationship in local welfare policies. Findings suggest that these different reactions will have consequences in the immediate future for the management of the pandemic crisis (still ongoing). Specifically, the tendency is to employ a management of services based on partnership-model, which means that public-private collaboration is a pillar of local welfare. This seems to entail a greater legitimacy for individuals or associations to participate in the formulation and implementation of policies.

This datapackage provides the dataset used for the first stage of the validation of the simulations and the analysis of the main variables collected by the monitoring system of the HEART project. At this stage (M32), the building refurbishment of the Italian case study in Bagnolo in Piano (Reggio Emilia) is not completed due to the COVID-19 lockdown; the window renovation has been done in September 2019 and in February 2020 the refurbishment works stopped. Therefore, the content of dataset at the moment is only on the first step of the building refurbishment. The dataset contains: the main climatic variables in the area the central heating monitored data the main monitorwd data for 5 refurbished appartments The building is located in the city of Bagnolo in Piano (Reggio Emilia, Italy), and it is oriented 21 degrees towards south west (44.7698536, 10.6768598 at 30 m of altitude.). It is a four-story building, having a total of 12 apartments (4 apartments per floor); cellars and parking area are located on the ground floor. The gross floor area for the conditioned zone is 245.78 [m2] (apartment plus external walls), for a total conditioned area of 737.34 [m2] for the entire building. Further information are available in the repository: Data set repository: https://gitlab.inf.unibz.it/URS/heart/bagnolo-dataset

In conjunction with the COVID-19 pandemic aftermath, Russian aggression on Ukraine has wide-ranging consequences for the EU, including high inflation, an immense energy cost increase, and a shortage of critical resources. All of these have pronounced effects on the sustainability and operations of research infrastructures (RIs), several of which face difficulties in providing continuous service. To address these topics, the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) has established a dedicated drafting group to look into the energy and supply challenges, also responding to a call by Competitiveness Council to do so. This report highlights the significant impact of the Russian aggression on Ukraine on the sustainability and operations of research infrastructures (RIs) in the EU. The energy crisis resulting from the Russian aggression poses a severe challenge to the RIs, predominantly analytical RIs, with energy-intensive RIs such as synchrotrons, computing centres, accelerator-driven particle sources, neutron facilities, research reactors, and lasers being the most affected. The shortage of critical resources and materials, such as some gases, rare isotopes, and permanent magnets, also presents a significant challenge to RIs, although they may not be a consequence of the war. The report presents recommendations to ESFRI, Member States, and the European Commission based on good practices from ESFRI member countries and the discussion within the drafting group to address these challenges and enhance the future resilience of RIs. The recommendations include allocating additional funds and energy price capping for the most energy-intensive RIs, developing response plans that include actions aimed at greening the operations of RIs, considering the needs of the RI communities in the activities linked to the Critical Raw Materials Regulation, and setting up specific measures to support the Ukrainian research community. The report emphasizes the importance of preparing for future crises, increasing the resilience and preparedness of European society to cope with any present and future crisis.

Starting from the relationship between urban planning and mobility management, TeMA has gradually expanded the view of the covered topics, always following a rigorous scientific in-depth analysis. This section of the Journal, Review Notes, is a continuous update about emerging topics concerning relationships among urban planning, mobility and environment thanks to a collection of short scientific papers written by young researchers. The Review Notes are made up of five parts. Each section examines a specific aspect of the broader information storage within the main interests of the TeMA Journal. In particular: The Town Planning International Rules and Legislation Overview section aims at presenting the latest updates in the territorial and urban legislative sphere. The Covid-19 pandemic is causing a major impact on energy systems. Improving the energy efficiency of urban areas is now the cornerstone of scientific community and the European Commission discussions. Thus, the content of this review note aims at carrying out an analysis of the latest documents of the European Commission before and during the slow recovery from Covid-19 with the aim of identifying the priorities and areas on which to intervene to reduce energy consumption in different territorial contexts. TeMA - Journal of Land Use, Mobility and Environment, Vol 14 No 1 (2021): The city challenges and external agents. Methods, tools and best practices

Urbanization is an onerous human activity: it affects municipal budget and foremost it costs the environment. Nevertheless, an ever-growing number of people (more than 75% of the European population) is living in cities and towns, so that identifying sustainable urban development solutions is a dramatically urgent need. Already in the 70s, some researches proposed parameters to evaluate urbanization costs in Italy, but they mainly focused on the economic and financial sustainability of real estate development. The land value capturing approaches proved to be inadequate when municipal budgets are facing growing social unbalances and critical environmental threats. The question being not just “where the money for urban infrastructures could come from”, but also “what could be a more sustainable development model”. In any case, now we are forced to rethink the whole organization of our urban life to defend ourselves from largely unknown threats, pandemics, COVID-19 being probably one among others that we could face in the near future. It is not yet clear if a link exists between the spread of the virus, the health consequences and the environmental conditions, but what probably will need to be assessed is the effect of population density on the spread of contamination. Even the traditional provision of services and public spaces will need to be defined again in order to protect and serve urban population. New evidences will force planners to redefine their thoughts and schemes. TeMA - Journal of Land Use, Mobility and Environment, 2020: Special Issue. Covid-19 vs City-20

The pandemic caused by Covid-19 has tested the resilience of public institutions, already burdened by a deep and complex crisis (political, economic, managerial). This crisis has revealed a discrepancy between the needs expressed by the community and the solutions adopted to satisfy them. This has been accompanied by a progressive worsening of decision-making efficiency and weak implementation capacity in a context of increasing environmental uncertainty. It is in local institutions, in particular, that the greatest problems are revealed, because of many endemic negative factors: political fragmentation, reduced economic resources, new forms of poverty. Against the background of this scenario, our study aims to analyze the reaction of local institutions to the pandemic crisis by looking at both welfare and communication services. The objective is to identify key features in understanding the resilience of municipalities. In other words, their ability to react and adapt to change, which is essential not only to deal with emergencies, such as the pandemic, but also to make the institution itself sustainable. Our interest is focused on a specific dimension of the resilience of the municipalities, related to collaboration with the third sector. The pandemic has shown that the continuous activism of non-profit organizations has allowed for the continuation of many so-called "ordinary" services, as well as the launch of several initiatives aimed at alleviating other social problems. The research has, first of all, an exploratory character that befits a new and still ongoing phenomenon. The basic questions concern the production of local welfare policies by municipalities. The data show different levels of "interventism" and different modes of communication. On this latter point, we observe the presence of significant attention-seeking among Mayors as community builders able, on the one hand, to reinforce the spirit of solidarity and, on the other, to uphold respect for the rules. On the services side, three main models of response to the pandemic emerge, two of which refer to the public-private relationship in local welfare policies. Findings suggest that these different reactions will have consequences in the immediate future for the management of the pandemic crisis (still ongoing). Specifically, the tendency is to employ a management of services based on partnership-model, which means that public-private collaboration is a pillar of local welfare. This seems to entail a greater legitimacy for individuals or associations to participate in the formulation and implementation of policies.

The following paper analyzes the Digital Social Innovation (DSI) phenomenon and focuses on why new technological trends are essential both for the country's growth and for Sustainable Development. The study conducted focused on the consequences of Covid-19 on society and sectors in Italy, analyzing how a digital response was able to positively affect the growth of the Large-Scale Retailing (LSR) sector. The ultimate goal is to understand the extent to which digitization affects economic, social, and environmental sustainability, and how this can have a positive impact on a country's long-term growth. All this is related to the case of the large-scale retail sector, examined as one of the few to have responded better, through processes of digital evolution, to the Covid-19 Pandemic.

This chapter introduces the first volume of the 'Tourism Studies on the Mediterranean Region' book series. The volume is devoted to the role of sustainability to face the challenges and opportunities arisen in tourism from the crisis of the sector due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

In Italy wine tourism is becoming increasingly important in all regions. An integrated offering has been developed in vitivinicultural areas, including a diversified portfolio of wine-related experiences provided by wineries and other actors. A relevant role for the birth and the development of wine tourism has been played by the main associations which have created and supported initiatives and events related to wine tourism. On the demand side, wine tourists look for subjective and memorable experiences, and together with wine they also would like to experience gastronomic, learning and entertaining activities. The COVID-19 crisis in 2020 has deeply affected wine tourism in Italy leading to the temporarily wineries closure to the public; however, producers have reacted by improving Direct-To-Consumer activities and digitalization of services. Moreover, with the reopening after the lockdown, Italian wine tourism industry has started again, investing in modern technologies creating open air experiences in vineyards to be offered along with indoor visitations in safety and according to the principles of sustainability.