Our Research Center
“scientia Atque usus” Research Center for Generative Communication (established in 1991) is a Research Body of the Nonprofit Sector with a specific political and social mission: to share Generative Communication between the world of scholars, experts and highly specialized professionals (scientia) and the world of business, associations, the world of work, institutions and, above all, citizens (usus).
Generative Communication helps to strengthen cooperation, to overcome the solitude, the self-referentiality and the mechanical logic of the assembly line of our society. It activates relationships among stakeholders for the strengthening of personal and public relationships and the identification of resources (not only economic). Through Research Projects, sAu Community redefines the concept of values and the relationship between values and the value of products and services.
What does Generative Communication do?
Analyze
and enhance the perceived and the world of use
sAu Research Center works on Intervention Areas that range from agriculture to rural development, from health to healthcare, from sustainability to Cultural Heritage. Each Intervention Area is organized by Fields of Action.
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sAu Research Center has created “Atque”, the Design and Communication System that supports stakeholders, researchers, experts and citizens in the development of Generative Communication Projects.
“Atque” is a suite of tools, closely connected and interactive, that are intended to carry out research, design, development, documentation, monitoring, communication and training activities.
The Values that Inspire sAu Research Center
Our Intervention Areas
Agriculture and Rural Development
A New Idea and a New Practise of Value
The concept of value, and its practical application in all socio-economic, cultural and political sectors, must be radically redefined, moving away from a definition based on purely economic and financial parameters.
Our Projects are based on an idea of Agriculture and Rural Development aimed to redefine the concept of value in agriculture, strengthening, in a systemic key, the sharing of knowledge and the cooperation between all the realities that operate on the territory and that usually do not communicate with each other.
Culture and Society
We believe in a society in which everyone can exercise the right to live his/her daily lives – at work, in family, in community – in order to know, enrich and improve his/her own life.
sAu Research Center aims to broaden the concept of Cultural Heritage, proposing it as a tool through which to redesign the relationship between the tangible and intangible historical-cultural heritage and the socio-economic fabric. The projects in this area are based on community building activities to facilitate the collaboration of varied stakeholders and strengthen the identity characteristics that bring added value to the use of these important common assets.
Research and Third Sector
For a New Culture of Research
We believe that it is more urgent than ever to defend the autonomy of the world of research, and its authority and credibility, redefining the relationship on the one hand with the values that inspire it and on the other with the complex world of daily living acts of citizens.
Coming soon
Health and Healthcare
We believe that the many, possible forms of participation in health choices and the ways of using social and health services should become acts of active and conscious citizenship.
sAu Research Center has been working for years in the field of health and healthcare with the aim to initiate knowledge-generating processes in which health companies, hospitals, associations and institutions cooperate to increase the level of health literacy of citizens.
Daily sustainability
and Climate Change
A Common Action to Bring Out Unexpressed Resources
What we are experiencing is not a crisis due to a lack of resources, but it is due to the inability to recognize and value the infinite resources that we can find with our creativity and intelligence.
Coming soon
The Enhancement of Human Creativity
Technologies (old and new ones), every form of automation, mechanical and otherwise, must be rethought and redesigned to respond, first of all, to the inalienable values of our humanity.
We believe in an idea of technology that is in support of human freedom and the right of individuals to know and guide their behavior according to the values in which they recognize themselves. It is a technology based on critical intelligence and human creativity: on human touch.
Health and Healthcare
Health and Healthcare
The “Don Lorenzo Milani Generative Center” is a project that the sAu Research Center is developing through its own “Atque” Design and Communication System on the occasion of the celebrations for the centenary of the birth of don Lorenzo Milani, prior of Barbiana (27 May 1923 – 27 May 2023).
With this project, the sAu Research Center is building an integrated system that collects and documents photos, videos, resources, experiences that update the thought and work of don Milani, to encourage the creation of a community - composed of schools, institutions, associations and many other stakeholders - committed to reflecting on social, cultural and religious issues inspired by the teaching of Don Milani with the aim of overcoming the current critical issues related to communication, inclusion and hospitality.
The Generative Communication and its Technique since 1991
Generative Communication is a technique to create communities of values, interests and objectives that cooperate for the development of products/services.
Generative Communication, conceived by Professor Luca Toschi, by its inclusive and participatory nature, promotes collaboration and coordination between the world of research (scientia) and the world of work, institutions, citizens (usus) and propose the implementation of innovative products – ensuring the active role of the communities – in response to problems with a strong economic, social and cultural impact and to the dis-integration of specialisms and non-communicating sectors.
The solutions proposed through the use of the Generative Communication are characterized by an idea of innovation that, starting from specific aspects, becomes the driving force that leads to systemic and non-sectoral innovation processes.
Our Design and Communication System
The “Atque” Design and Communication System is an integrated system of tools intended to facilitate the cooperation among stakeholders in order to encourage and constantly expand communities of interests around a project. It is also designed to communicate the results achieved by the project through a precise strategy of content publishing that can be useful for expanding communities outside the project.
The Integrated System Atque aims to facilitate both the internal communication, the stakeholder engagement and training activities, the implementation of the networking/dissemination.
Our Design and Communication System is a suite composed of:
It is a place where sAu community carries out design, development, management and monitoring activities for projects based on Generative Communication. It strengthens collaboration and cooperation between all stakeholders involved.
It is a place where sAu community carries out design, development, management and monitoring activities for projects based on Generative Communication. It strengthens collaboration and cooperation between all stakeholders involved.
It is the training center of sAu Research Center that proposes object-oriented activities.
It responds to specific needs that emerge within the Projects carried out by sAu community: from the training reserved to the personnel of organizations, institutions, foundations and associations to initiatives addressed to stakeholders to give them a role in the project activities.
Officine, Library, Matrix and Academy are complemented by other sAu Research Center tools:
sAu Quaderni, the journal used to publish contents and information to disseminate the project in all the phases;
international series of transdisciplinary studies.
Luca Toschi
Founder and President of scientia Atque usus Research Center
Director of Center for Generative Communication of University of Florence and of Lab Center for Generative Communication of PIN – University Center (Prato).
Full Professor of Sociology of Cultural and Communicative Processes, University of Florence.
Co-founding member of scientia Atque usus Research Center
Viola Davini
Co-founding member and Association Secretary of scientia Atque usus Research Center
Ph.D.
Research fellow at Center for Generative Communication of University of Florence.
Marta Guarducci
Member of scientia Atque usus Research Center
Co-founding member and Association Treasurer of scientia Atque usus Research Center
Ph.D.
Researcher at Center for Generative Communication of University of Florence.
Member of scientia Atque usus Research Center
Research assistant at Center for Generative Communication of University of Florence.
Co-founding member of scientia Atque usus Research Center
Ph.D.
Research fellow at Center for Generative Communication of University of Florence.
Valentina Vespi
Member of editorial staff of sAu Quaderni
Contact us!
Write to viola.davini@sau-centroricerche.org