Comune di Napoli

Their core work

Comune di Napoli is the municipal government of Naples, one of southern Europe's largest cities with over one million inhabitants. In EU research projects, they function as an urban testbed and local governance partner — providing research consortia with access to city infrastructure, residents, and municipal decision-making processes that are otherwise impossible to replicate in a lab or simulate at scale. They have contributed to climate resilience planning (CLARITY) and urban food system governance (FoodE), in both cases acting as the city authority that bridges research pilots and real-world implementation. Their core value is the combination of political mandate, territorial scale, and direct community access that a large metropolitan administration uniquely holds.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

With only two projects spanning 2017 to 2024, the trajectory is narrow but readable. The first project, CLARITY, positioned the city primarily as a site for testing environmental risk tools — Naples as a vulnerable urban environment needing adaptation infrastructure. The second project, FoodE, expanded the lens toward food system transformation and added an explicit participatory dimension, with citizen science and responsible research appearing as defining keywords. The shift suggests that Comune di Napoli is moving from being a passive urban testbed toward a more active role in shaping how research engages local communities.

Comune di Napoli is evolving from climate infrastructure adaptation toward participatory urban sustainability governance, making them a relevant partner for projects that need both city-scale policy authority and genuine community engagement mechanisms.

How they like to work

Comune di Napoli participates exclusively as a consortium partner — they have never coordinated an H2020 project, which is typical for public authorities whose strength lies in local governance rather than research management. Both their projects are large Innovation Actions, and their 44 unique partners across just 2 projects signals they join expansive, multi-country consortia rather than small bilateral arrangements. Expect them to contribute urban access and institutional legitimacy, not technical research leadership.

Despite a portfolio of only 2 projects, Comune di Napoli has engaged with 44 unique partners across 11 countries — an unusually broad network for such limited participation, entirely explained by the large consortium structure of Innovation Actions. Their connections span European cities and research institutions, not a concentrated national cluster.

What sets them apart

Few research partners can offer what a large Mediterranean city government brings: direct policy authority over a dense, economically mixed urban population of one million, in a geography that is disproportionately exposed to climate stress and food system fragility. Naples represents conditions — aging infrastructure, urban heat, informal food markets, civic participation gaps — that are highly relevant to EU-wide urban challenges but underrepresented in northern-dominated consortia. For a consortium that needs southern European urban realism rather than a showcase city, Comune di Napoli is a credible and distinctive choice.

Highlights from their portfolio

• FoodE
  Their largest and most recent project (EUR 169,500, running to 2024), directly combining urban governance with citizen science in the context of city-regional food systems — the clearest signal of where their engagement is heading.
• CLARITY
  Their first H2020 engagement, establishing Naples as a European urban testbed for climate adaptation service tools and resilience planning across multiple city typologies.