Milano Metropoli keeps constantly up-to-date with national and international trends and ideas in order to adopt new approaches to local revival and development. One strategic project in this sense was The European Learning Network (LNet). We were involved in LNet for three years, along with other development agencies and operators in the sector from Amsterdam, Hamburg, London, Milan and Prague, tackling new territorial policies in Europe's urban areas, currently home to 75% of the continent's population.

LNet involved the five city councils, operators in the social economy, local authorities, economics experts and social enterprises from the various cities in a series of thematic workshops and simulated interventions. The aim was to identify strategies that could promote key issues for sustainable urban development: innovation, entrepreneurship and social enterprise in deprived areas.

Along with the Province of Milan, Milano Metropoli coordinated the work done on the specific issue of social enterprise. We defined a common method of collecting data on case studies, recovering information on social enterprise from all the partners and making them instrumental to the project. In addition, we collaborated with our partners on the other two issues, providing them with data and case studies taken from the experience of the Milanese metropolitan area.

Like the other LNet partners, our Agency fosters contacts between political decision-makers and international local development experts, not only to solve the problems of the territory, but also to re-launch the role of Europe's metropolitan cities.  The idea is to promote a network of relations between different cities, with different cultures, but with common socio-economic and territorial problems, which range from the presence of deprived areas to major social issues such as poverty, unemployment, lack of social and economic stability, immigration and security.

In the first step Milano Metropoli also contributed create the on-line manual "Promoting enterprise in deprived urban areas: what works?"; a tool specifically addressed to practitioners and policy makers who want to tackle urban deprivation in their cities.
Lastly, from December 2006 it is available a paper entitled "Entrepreneurship and innovation in deprived urban areas. A comparison between European experiences".

A second step of the project is currently on the way. Milano Metropoli is testing the lessons learned experimenting pilot actions in the North-west Milan and drafting guidelines for a strategic plan in the municipality of Baranzate.

The project was funded within the context of the UE Interreg IIIC programme.

For further details, visit
www.thelearningnetwork.net.