Our Research Center

Since 1991, sAu is a community of people active in the most diverse contexts of the world of research (scientia) and business, associations, the world of work, institutions (usus), which deals with analysis, documentation, design and training in the field of Generative Communication strategies and systems.
The Research Center works on Research Areas particularly strategic for the design and development of initiatives with a strong political and social impact.
The Research Areas are experimentation fields where the world of scientia and usus cooperate.
In each Research Area sAu promotes a series of Projects.
For each Project, sAu realizes a specific “Officina”, a design and communication system based on the method of Generative Communication.
Our Research Areas
Each Research Area is powered by (and, in turn, feeds) numerous Projects that see
the active involvement of subjects operating within public and private,
institutional and entrepreneurial contexts.
Each Projects has its Officina
Each Project is realized through an integrated system which stimulates cooperation among different stakeholders in all the design phases:
from the conception, the development, to the management and the monitoring
(sAu Officine) of the obtained results until their communication
(sAu Quaderni, the journal of the Research Center).
Our Values, our History
The Values that Inspire the Research Center

The Research Center sees in the complexity of society an immense wealth of resources and recognizes in the fragmentation of knowledge and skills that characterize this particular historical moment the main obstacle to scientific, civic and social progress.

Download the Carta dei Valori (Italian version)

CoverCentroricerche
Carta2
Carta3
Carta4
carta 5
Carta5.1
Carta6
Carta7
Carta8
Carta9
Carta10
Carta11
Coverscenario
d-Atque1
d-Atque2
d-Atque3
Scen1
Scen3
Scen4
Scen5
Scen2
Scen6
t-Contatti
Precedente
Successivo
Our History, our Partners. Since 1991
Great projects need good travel companions.
The story below is dedicated to all those who have accompanied us so far.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
Precedente
Successivo
Our Research Areas
Technologies to Enhance
the Human Touch
The Enhancement of Human Critical
and Creative Intelligence
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.

Only given the centrality of this human touch, both in the identification phase of needs – social, cultural, economic and political – and in the design and implementation of the related tools, the contribution of machines, and of every mechanism aimed to automation, can be considered fundamental and essential.

Click here

Health, Well-being
and Healthcare
The Active Role of the Patient for a
Healthy Society
We believe that the many, possible forms of participation in health choices, in the ways of offering and using social and health services
can not be sporadic events, but it must become
daily acts of citizenship

The Research Center has been working for years on medical-scientific communication and health services to encourage health literacy among all citizens and synergies between experts, institutions, health companies and third sector associations. It is overt, the need to define a new communication pact between all stakeholders who intend to cooperate for the realization of a new idea of ​​health and healthcare.

Click here

Agriculture and Rural Development
For a New Idea of Value
The concept of value, and its practical application
in all socio-economic, cultural and political sectors,
must be radically redefined. It is no longer
sustainable, from any point of view, that it should be made to coincide – as is the case today in most cases –
with a definition based on purely economic and
financial parameters.

Our projects are based on a community building strategy aimed at rethinking and redefining the role and resources of the various subjects involved, with a strong focus on the network of stakeholders, in the belief that the working table must be radically rewritten.

Click here

Research and Third Sector

A new culture of research

We believe that it is more urgent than ever to defend the autonomy of the world of research (scientia), and its authority and credibility, redefining the relationship on the one hand with the values that inspire it, or would like to inspire it, and on the other with the complex world of daily living acts of citizens and citizens (usus).

It is necessary to rethink the places and tools of scientific research, as well as the profiles of researchers and organizations themselves, in an anthropological scenario that sees the entire planet transforming into a huge potentials laboratory.

The Third Sector Entities engaged in research activities can play an essential role in orienting public and private research institutions towards a different relationship with the world of use.

Click here

Culture and the
Knowledge Society
Knowledge as a Common Good

A society in which everyone can exercise the right to live his/her daily lives – at work, in family, in community – as a continuous research activity, in order to know, enrich and improve the quality lives on an individual and collective level.

Never as today is Socrates’ statement true: “Life without research is not worth living” (Apology).

Knowledge and culture are the most important renewable resources, whose mutuality is a necessary condition for a sustainable society.

Click here

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 the inability to recognize
and value the infinite resources still
unexpressed that we can find with our creativity, with our intelligence, because of the relationship between what we know and what we can do.

This situation is answered by supporting a communication that wants to recognize and enhance, in actions of daily sustainability, the infinite resources, currently ignored and humiliated, present in a complex society such as ours.

Click here

Our Research Projects
Technologies to Enhance the Human Touch
Technologies to Enhance the Human Touch
Surgical Robots
A Perception Analysis of the most Advanced Robotic Technologies

The Research Center proposes a survey on the perception that health professionals and patients have of the most advanced robotic technologies.

To what extent can a robot replace a surgeon in the operating room?

What are the fears and expectations of patients who will be subjected to interventions that involve an important contribution from robots?

Documentation as a Tool for Community Building
Management and Analysis of Funds and Archives

The Research Center is working on the development of solutions for the management and analysis of funds and archives that aim to promote the sharing of contents, the debate and the creativity of people involved, facilitating the creation of project communities.

Active Documentation Center and Archives of Barbiana
To Enhance Don Lorenzo Milani’s Heritage

The Research Center - in collaboration with Fondazione Don Lorenzo Milani and Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze - is developing a Documentation Center to support cultural projects with schools and other stakeholders to revitalize the experience of Don Lorenzo Milani. The results will be published for the Don Lorenzo Milani's centenary.

The 'scientia Atque usus' Model
Generative Communication to Strengthen the Relationship between Doctor and Patient

The Center for Generative Communication - in collaboration with the Operative Structure of Andrology, Female Endocrinology and Gender Incongruence of the Careggi University Hospital (Florence, Italy) -  proposes a project to promote a different listening culture for medical students and to build a training course on communication with the patients.

The Oncological Listening Center as an Engine of Constant Innovation for the Regional Health System
To rebuild Communication between Citizens and the Regional Health System

The project aims to analyze whether and how data, information and knowledge that emerge from the activity of the ISPRO Cancer Listening Center of the Tuscan Region can contribute to design and develop a new and innovative communication between citizens and the Regional Health System.

Health, Well-being and Healthcare
Health, Well-being and Healthcare
The Value of the Tuscan Healthcare System
A New Way to Communicate its Vision and Mission

The project investigates the constitutive values ​​of healthcare in Tuscany, to imagine a new way of evaluating and, therefore, communicating its vision and mission. 

Sport that Generates Health
A New Information Tool for Citizenship

The project aims to study the communication model adopted by the institutions - at international, national and regional level - to promote physical activity as primary health prevention. The ultimate goal is to use the Generative Communication Paradigm to create an awareness and communication campaign through the creation of an app in which the health needs of users converge with scientific information from industry experts.

The Added Value of Involving Patients to Strengthen Access to Health Services
Participation in Health Choices

For years, the Research Center has been involved in implementing communication strategies to strengthen the level of patient involvement in the field of healthcare and health. The project aims to identify partners to initiate shared analysis and evaluation processes of listening and communication actions - that are active in the partners’ organizations - with the aim of strengthening these services.

Master in Medical-Scientific and Health Services Communication
Third Edition - 2022

The CMSSS Master - in collaboration with the Department of Experimental and Clinical Medicine and Careggi University Hospital (Florence, Italy) - is intended as a consultative training course. Thanks to the board of professors - researchers, doctors and experts of international level - the Master trains communication professionals who already operate - or would like to operate - in organizations that are interested in carrying out Generative Communication projects. Here are some of the projects that Master students are carrying out in the current edition:

  • Communication in Maxi-Emergencies: a Model Hypothesis for Hospitals
  • Pro-active Public Relations Office
  • Prevention and Management of the Nutritional Risk for Surgical Patient
  • Let’s Help the First Aid! How to Help Us Help You
Master in Medical-Scientific and Health Services Communication
Second Edition - 2021

Please find below some of the projects of the second edition of the CMSSS Master, in collaboration with the Department of Experimental and Clinical Medicine and Careggi University Hospital (Florence, Italy):

  • For Two-Way Communication. The Digital Strategy of the Milan Polyclinic
  • Community Building for Digitization in the Long-Term Care Sector
  • The Renaissance of the Territorial Pharmacist Through Telemedicine Services
Master in Medical-Scientific and Health Services Communication
First Edition - 2020

Please find below some of the projects of the second edition of the CMSSS Master, in collaboration with the Department of Experimental and Clinical Medicine and Careggi University Hospital (Florence, Italy):

  • Telemedicine and Remote Consultations: the Absence of Physical Proximity to Redefine the Communication Between Doctor and Patient
  • Palliative Care in the Rare and Cancer Patient
  • Listening to Improve Oncology Services. The Tuscan Listening Networks in the Covid 19 Emergency
  • Covid-19 and Crisis Communication. A Professional Training Project for Journalists
SUrveillance on Childhood and ADOlescent CANcer (SUCHADOCAN)
Monitoring Pediatric Cancers in Tuscany

This 2 years project, in collaboration with the “Istituto per lo Studio, la Prevenzione e la Rete Oncologica” (ISPRO), Agenzia Regionale di Sanità (ARS) Toscana, and the University of Florence won the 2018 Call of Regione Toscana for Health Research. It aims to create a Tuscan regional system dedicated to the surveillance and monitoring of the incidence of childhood and adolescent cancers in relation to specific environmental risk factors.
The project involves the application of the paradigm of Generative Communication in the active involvement of citizens for the definition of communication and awareness campaigns.

Who is Afraid of Childbirth
Analyzing the Social Dimension of Motherhood

The project - carried out in collaboration with Professor Felice Petraglia, director of the Department of Gynecology of the Careggi University Hospital - aims to bring out the social dimension of motherhood through listening, identification, collection and analysis of the fears that characterize the imagination of pregnant women.

Agriculture and Rural Development
Agriculture and Rural Development
Generative Communication to Redefine the Value of Oil
Recovery and Enhancement of Olive Groves
The project, carried out in collaboration with Associazione Nazionale Città dell’Olio, aims to redefine the real value of oil and olive groves, in economic, social, environmental, health, landscape and cultural terms.
From Farm to Table
A Correct Nutrition Education for Everyone
How well do we know what we eat every day? Where does food come from, who produced it, and how? What effects - positive or negative - will it have on our health? This survey conducted by the sAu Research Center was born in the context of the Master in Medical-Scientific Communication and Health Services.
Research and Third Sector
Research and Third Sector
Third Sector Research Centers: a Scenario to be Built
A New Culture of Research
The Research Center carried out a survey on Third Sector Entities that deal with scientific research. The Third Sector Entities (ETS) engaged in research activities can play an essential role both in orienting public and private research bodies towards a radically different relationship with the world of usus, and in bringing out a scientific value from the normal activity of every citizen.
Culture and the Knowledge Society
Culture and the Knowledge Society
Migrant Children's Participation in Education and Healthcare (PRIN Project)
A Collaboration Between Educational and Healthcare Organizations
This 3 years project - together with the partners: University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, (UniMORE), University of Turin (UniTO) and University of Eastern Piedmont (UniUPO) - analyses policies, practices, expectations and experiences, in order to understand: the intersection of factors which condition migrant children’s rights and opportunities of participation (culture, gender, class, geography, age, ability, status); the conditions of migrant children’s agency; the production of hybrid identity through negotiations based on children’s exercise of agency.
Research Centers that Redefine the Value of the Landscape
For a Functional Landscape Literacy
The project proposes an investigation on the main research centers that are developing communication models that contribute to contrasting the landscape analfebetism, intended as the widespread inability of citizens and stakeholders to know and understand the potential value (cultural, social and economic) of the places they live in.
School of Landscape
The Landscape as a Training Tool for Citizenship
The Research Center promotes a research and training path for primary and secondary school teachers to raise the level of awareness of students and to provide them adequate tools to analyze and understand the value of regional and national landscapes.
Sustainability and Climate Change
Sustainability and Climate Change
The Sustainability of Knowledge
A new Relationship Between Research and Everyday Behavior
Almost all books and articles dealing with sustainability state that we already have enough knowledge to make our society more sustainable and reduce the impacts of climate change, but that we are not using it. How to get out of this impasse? The project proposes a call to action to identify institutional and private partners to address this important issue.
The Generative Communication Paradigm since 1991
The Generative Communication Paradigm, conceived by prof. Luca Toschi, by its inclusive and participatory nature, considers communication as common-action: a tool to develop community building strategies involving different actors from a given geographical area (citizens, associations,
companies, institutions, research institutions, etc.). We strongly believe that to communicate a service or a product,
it is necessary to create communities of interest, objectives, and values that cooperate for the development of the product/service itself.
A strictly promotional communication model cannot be effective. Innovation processes are based on a communication generating knowledge on the territory and having a transdisciplinary approach aimed at implementing a shared project.
sAu Ecosystem of Tools

scientia Atque usus is the place where many voices – different in terms of knowledge, skills, abilities, professionalism, social roles, but united by precise ethical choices – share and discuss a new culture of communication.
Our Ecosystem of Tools favor maximum collaboration and cooperation between the world of research – scientia – and the infinite social, economic, cultural activities – the world of usus.
For each project the Research Center implements tools for the conception, development, management and monitoring (sAu Officine), for the sharing of the results obtained (sAu Quaderni), for the content management and publishing (sAu Library).

It is a design and communication system, designed specifically to facilitate the conception, design, development, implementation and monitoring of the projects realized by sAu community.
It strengthens collaboration and cooperation between all stakeholders involved.

It is the newspaper of the Research Center, the periodical in which articles of various kinds deal with the issues that emerged from the activities developed within the projects.

It collects, communicates and makes available the documentation and knowledge that feeds the projects carried out by sAu community.
It is not a decontextualized archive of resources: each content of the Library is associated with one or more research areas and at least one project of the Research Center.

It is an administrative-managerial tool of sAu, directed by Luca Toschi and located at the technological pole called PIN.
It defines, in contract with partners, the consultancy projects it carries out and which allows the Community to participate in competitive calls at regional, national and international level.
About Us
Many disciplines, knowledge, experiences, competences converge in the projects of the Research Center: for this reason the activities involve researchers,
but also professionals, of different origins and very articulated scientific-professional backgrounds.
This allows the Research Center to offer its partners tools for analysis, design, development and communication monitoring capable of responding – immediately –
to the most specific and diversified needs.

Luca Toschi

Founder and President of the Research Center Scientia Atque usus

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.

Lisa Capitini

Co-founding member of the Research Center Scientia Atque usus

Ph.D. candidate in the program in Sustainable Management of Agricultural, Forestry and Food Resources at the Department of Agriculture, Food, Environment and Forestry of University of Florence.

Viola Davini

Co-founding member of the Research Center Scientia Atque usus and Association Secretary

Ph.D.

Research fellow at Center for Generative Communication of University of Florence.

Alfonso Musci

Co-founding member of the Research Center Scientia Atque usus

Ph.D.

Research fellow at Center for Generative Communication of University of Florence.

Eugenio Pandolfini
Co-founding member of the Research Center Scientia Atque usus and Association Treasurer

Ph.D.

Researcher at Center for Generative Communication of University of Florence.

Ilaria Papini
Member of the Research Center Scientia Atque usus

Research assistant at Center for Generative Communication of University of Florence.

Marco Sbardella
Co-founding member of the Research Center Scientia Atque usus

Ph.D.

Research fellow at Center for Generative Communication of University of Florence.

Do you Want to Know More about our Research Center?

Contact us!
Write to viola.davini@sau-centroricerche.org