SMART VENICE SRL

Their core work

Smart Venice is a Venice-based private company specializing in gender equality consulting and institutional change within research and innovation ecosystems. They design and deliver training programs on gender equality, develop gender equality plans for research institutions, and support certification systems that recognize organizations advancing gender balance. Their work bridges social innovation and digital tools, helping institutions embed gender-sensitive practices into their research processes and organizational structures.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Smart Venice's earliest H2020 involvement (2018) began with community-level digital social innovation through Families_Share, addressing work-life balance via shared childcare platforms. From 2019 onward, their focus shifted decisively toward institutional gender equality — first through training infrastructure (GE Academy), then scaling to systemic institutional change and formal certification frameworks (CALIPER, CASPER). The trajectory shows a clear move from grassroots social innovation to policy-level institutional transformation in the gender equality space.

Moving from delivering gender equality training toward shaping institutional frameworks and certification systems — positioning themselves as experts in structural change rather than just awareness-raising.

How they like to work

Smart Venice operates exclusively as a project participant, never as a coordinator, suggesting they contribute specialized expertise rather than leading consortium management. With 35 unique partners across 18 countries from just 4 projects, they work in sizeable European consortia and are comfortable in multi-country, multi-institution settings. Their consistent participant role and broad partner network indicate they are a trusted specialist contributor that consortia seek out for gender expertise and social innovation knowledge.

Despite only 4 projects, Smart Venice has built a wide network of 35 partners across 18 countries, reflecting the large consortium sizes typical of Coordination and Support Actions in the gender equality space. Their reach spans much of the EU, with no narrow geographic clustering.

What sets them apart

Smart Venice combines gender equality expertise with digital and social innovation — an uncommon pairing among Italian private companies in this space. Their involvement spans the full spectrum from community-level digital tools to EU-level institutional certification systems, giving them both grassroots and policy perspectives. For consortium builders, they offer a private-sector voice in a field often dominated by universities and public bodies, which strengthens the quadruple helix dimension of proposals.

Highlights from their portfolio

• CALIPER
  Largest budget (EUR 321K) and longest duration, focused on linking research and innovation ecosystems through gender equality plans using a quadruple helix approach.
• GE Academy
  Dedicated to building a European-level training infrastructure for gender equality, including training standards and a trainers network — a multiplier project.
• Families_Share
  Their only non-gender-equality project, showing their digital and social innovation roots — a community platform for collaborative childcare and work-life balance.