Eurispes at the CNR meeting on ‘New Cartographies of Inner Areas and Insularity’
Inner, mountain and island areas are central to the challenges of territorial rebalancing and of ecological and social transformation. Understanding their dynamics requires reconstructing the historical processes and the social and environmental relationships that have altered their liveability and access to services, contributing to deep inequalities across the country.
These themes are the focus of the conference ‘New Cartographies of Inner Areas and Insularity: Research and Implications’, to be held on 4 November 2026 in Rome, in the Aula Marconi at the headquarters of the National Research Council (Cnr). The meeting will bring together research, institutions and local stakeholders to develop new ways of interpreting these contexts and to discuss their implications for public policy.
The day will consist of two complementary sessions. The first, ‘Inner Areas and Mountains: Liveability, Services and Territorial Policies’, will combine reflection on the National Strategy for Inner Areas and the new law on mountain areas with experiences of collaborative mapping, regeneration and efforts to counter depopulation. Research on abandoned villages and fieldwork practices will provide further material for discussing the conditions that make it possible to live in these places. The second, ‘The Sustainability of Minor Islands’, will examine the specific features of insularity through the role of municipalities, responses to health needs, the energy transition, climate adaptation, and the management of land and water resources. The exchange of experiences will help to identify the shared critical issues and the differences between inner, mountain and island territories, exploring how research can contribute to policies attuned to their characteristics. The afternoon session will also see the presentation of the new Sustainable Islands Portal.
The programme includes institutional greetings from the President of the Cnr, Andrea Lenzi, the Minister for European Affairs, the NRRP and Cohesion Policies, Tommaso Foti, and the President of the Parliamentary Intergroup ‘Development of the South, Fragile Areas and Minor Islands’, Alessandro Caramiello. The afternoon session will open with institutional greetings from the Minister for Civil Protection and Maritime Policies, Nello Musumeci, and the President of the Parliamentary Commission on Countering the Disadvantages of Insularity, Tommaso Calderone.
The morning session will be chaired by Aldo Berlinguer, coordinator of the Eurispes Laboratory on Insularity and Inner Areas, with concluding remarks by Filippo Barbera, Full Professor of Economic Sociology and the Rector’s delegate for inner areas and metro-mountain territorial systems at the University of Turin.
Contributions from researchers at the Cnr and several universities will be complemented by the experiences of representatives of the National Union of Mountain Municipalities, Communities and Authorities (Uncem), the National Association of Minor Island Municipalities (Ancim), the National Health Association for Small Islands (Anspi), the Metropoli Est Local Action Group (GAL) and Legambiente.
The discussion will contribute to building a shared research agenda and to identifying tools to guide public policies capable of responding to the specific characteristics of places and the aspirations of the communities that live in them.
Admission is free, subject to availability, with prior registration at: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/e/erTqyGfeeL
