Lab Co-Design and Coprogramming: Theory and Collaborative Practices

The course aims to explore the potential and limitations of collaborative welfare, with particular reference to the scenarios envisaged by the introduction—through the Third Sector Code—of the procedures of co-programming and co-design.
Co-programming, at the core of Article 55 of the Third Sector Code, defines a process of collaboration between the Third Sector and public administrations aimed at identifying the needs to be met, the necessary interventions, the methods of implementation, and the related resources.
Co-programming is closely linked to another mechanism, that of co-design, also set out in Article 55, which concerns a more specifically operational level. Together, these two mechanisms form a channel of "shared administration," which, as stated by the Constitutional Court, represents "one of the most significant implementations of the principle of horizontal subsidiarity."
The course will also examine the trajectories of local welfare, with particular attention to the impact generated by the new collaborative procedures.

In the first part of the course, the aim is to provide an understanding of the main stages that have marked the evolution of twentieth-century welfare in Italy, with particular attention to the features that local welfare has assumed in recent years. The course will reconstruct the main theoretical issues involved, including the fundamental characteristics of the principle of horizontal subsidiarity and the role that the Third Sector has come to play within the so-called "subsidiary law."
In the second part of the workshop, the potential and limitations arising from the introduction of the mechanisms of co-programming and co-design will be explored, also through discussion of concrete case studies. Co-design will be examined both from a theoretical perspective and in relation to the challenges involved in the practical implementation of collaborative processes.
In this part of the course, students will be actively engaged in order to concretely assess the opportunities and risks inherent in collaborative practices.