COPED 2025 – Catania – Italy June 8th > 17th, 2025, Call for Applications

Are you a graduate student or early-career researcher interested in how research can generate socially equitable and ecological community development? Join CoPED!

CoPED is an intensive 10-day transdisciplinary and participatory action-research summer school that will allow you to explore the theoretical foundations but also the practical strategies necessary for a scientifically rigorous but also highly transformative research process.

This year, the school will take place in the San Berillo Neighborhood, located in the historic center of Catania, the second-largest metropolitan city in Sicily (Italy). San Berillo has a long, controversial, and internationally renowned history. It is the remaining portion of a 60-era urban renewal project that destroyed a once-vibrant neighborhood whose historic buildings have become the refuge for vulnerable groups such as sex workers, migrants, and housing squatters. A small group of residents, together with local activists and researchers, have established a cooperative called Trame di Quartiere. Over the past 10 years, Trame has fought against decline and blight by implementing cultural initiatives, establishing a community hub, and providing services to residents.

Today, the neighborhood is pursuing an ambitious goal: finally tackling the still high rate of abandonment of the built environment to advance the dream of an equitable regeneration plan for San Berillo, prioritizing affordable housing and the inclusion of the most vulnerable groups that, for almost half a century, have made this place their home.

This opportunity has the chance to become a reality thanks to the interest of two strategic partners: IACP Catania (Instituto Autonomo Case Popolari – Catania Public Housing Authority), the primary authority in charge of public housing in the Catania province, and Confcooperative Habitat, Italy’s main confederation of cooperatives and social enterprises.

This year, Trame, IACP Catania, and Confcooperative Habitat are partnering with CoPED to develop concrete strategies of joint action to increase the number of affordable housing units in San Berillo and contrast the current risk of tourist-driven real estate pressures.

WORK PROGRAM

The work program begins on June 8th, from 4pm to 9pm (including welcome dinner). It continues with a daily schedule from 8:30am until 6pm, with the following exceptions: Monday June 9th, Thursday June 12th, and Monday June 16th activities end at 9pm, since they include public events; Friday June 13th is a free-day. A detailed program will be provided to selected participants.

HOW TO APPLY AND COSTS

Every year CoPED selects a restricted number of participants, to allow in-depth supervising.

We evaluate applicants based on how well their motivation, personal experiences, and academic and research interests align with CoPED’s mission and objectives.

If you are interested to apply, select the option that applies to you:

1. Applicants from UMASS and University of Memphis should follow the procedure of their institutions. For questions, contact: Katherine Lambert-Pennington (k.lambert-pennington@memphis.edu) and Antonio Raciti (antonio.raciti@umb.edu). Participation fee is determined by each institution separately, and is all-inclusive of the costs related to teaching services, lodging, and meals during the school.
2.  Students from other US-based institutions considering attending CoPED for credits, please contact prof. Raciti or prof. Lambert-Pennington for info.
3. All other applicants should send an updated CV and a letter of intent as soon as possible and no later than March 16th, 2025 to copedsummerschool@gmail.com.

Applicants will be notified of the results of the selection process no later than March 23th, 2025.

The official languages of the school are both Italian and English, but bilingual applicants are highly welcomed.

Participation fee is 480 euro and includes: teaching services, materials, facilities meals and coffee breaks during working hours The fee does not cover lodging transportation meals during non-working hours