Social Emotional Learning (SEL) is an educational approach that promotes the development of students’ social and emotional competencies alongside their cognitive skills. These competencies are considered essential for individual well-being, a positive school climate, and educational success, particularly in socio-economically disadvantaged contexts.
Aware of the importance of SEL in education, in 2025 we launched a research project with the Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering at Politecnico di Milano, aimed at designing, piloting, and evaluating an educational intervention to foster social and emotional competencies in primary and lower secondary schools.
The research project is structured into four phases: co-design with schools, pilot testing, large-scale implementation, and impact evaluation. The study will involve 15 schools across Milan, the Triveneto area, Rome, and Taranto, integrating teacher training, the adoption of SEL practices in everyday teaching, and the systematic observation of educational processes.

Insieme all’Università degli Studi di Torino abbiamo avviato il progetto di ricerca di durata quadriennale ‘’Pratiche e modellizzazioni della collaborazione interprofessionale educatore-insegnante a scuola”, che mira a studiare le pratiche dell’interprofessionalità educatore-insegnante a scuola come strategia di contrasto alla dispersione scolastica, che è alla base del nostro programma Masì.

Il progetto di ricerca prevede l’adozione di un approccio qualitativo a orientamento pedagogico ed etnografico, volto a cogliere in profondità le dinamiche dell’interprofessionalità tra educatori e insegnanti. La ricerca sul campo, inoltre, prevede l’ingresso nei contesti scolastici con periodi di osservazione partecipante nelle classi, nelle riunioni e nei momenti informali della quotidianità scolastica.

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The research project, carried out in collaboration with Fondazione Openpolis, aims to fill key information gaps regarding early childhood services in the 14 Italian metropolitan cities (Bari, Bologna, Cagliari, Catania, Florence, Genoa, Messina, Milan, Naples, Palermo, Reggio Calabria, Rome, Turin, Venice) and to develop in-depth knowledge tools on the availability of nursery schools, including at the sub-municipal level, with the goal of supporting more informed planning and a better understanding of territorial dynamics.

The Survey, which we fully promoted and funded, was carried out by the University of Milano‑Bicocca in collaboration with the IARD Institute, continuing a tradition of surveys launched in 1990 and developed over more than thirty years. The research project, coordinated by Prof. Gianluca Argentin, involved a large group of scholars from various Italian universities.
The survey reached nearly 10,000 teachers from around 400 school complexes across the country, providing a detailed and up‑to‑date picture of working conditions, professional experiences, and perceptions of the teaching role.
Comparison with the three previous surveys (1990, 1999, 2008) makes it possible to observe, from a long‑term perspective, changes in teachers’ profiles and in their work.
The results are collected in the volume In costante divenire: insegnare tra molteplici impegni in contesti plurali (il Mulino).

During the research process, more than 2,000 teachers and school leaders expressed their willingness to join a teacher panel, making it possible to extend the Survey into a longitudinal perspective through repeated interviews of the same individuals at regular intervals. This approach allows for the observation of how opinions, experiences, and behaviors evolve over time and in response to changing contextual conditions.
In December 2025, a first survey on specific topics (work experience, summer learning loss, teaching approaches and tools, school choices) was launched, with more than 1,800 teachers and school leaders taking part.

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Click here to download the volume in open access

We believe that, when implemented correctly, digitalisation can be an effective tool for rethinking education as a whole, making it more engaging, participatory and inclusive.

We decided to support Percorsi di Secondo Welfare, a research and information laboratory that has been engaged for years in broadening and disseminating the debate on the changes taking place in Italian welfare, through the realization of Nova Schol@, a project that aims to investigate the correlation between didactic innovation, digitization and social inclusion.

To answer these questions, Nova Schol@ also involves detailed field research through the involvement of students, teachers and parents in some public schools particularly active on the issues under investigation.

These research activities will be complemented by communication and dissemination activities, including the creation of the podcast “Oltre la cattedra”.

Click here to follow the research results

Click here to listen to the podcast on Spotify

Several authoritative sources identify teachers as a profession at high risk of burnout, not only for the nature of the job itself, but because of the increasing complexity of classroom management and teacher-pupil relations.

In collaboration with Learn More, in the 2023/2024 school year we started supporting applied research on techniques developed in other countries (e.g. Positive Behaviour Support and Collaborative Problem Solving) to enable a selected group of teachers from schools in Milan and surrounding areas to trial more effective ways of interacting with their pupils while reducing stress levels.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE RESEARCH REPORT

CLICK HERE TO READ THE SHEETS

In 2022, we financed further research into the social impact of early school leaving by a group of economists and researchers at the Federico II University in Naples. The research team aimed to calculate, for the first time, the precise cost of school dropout for the community.

Click here to read the research report

Well aware that education is one of the most effective ways to systematically address the growing challenges of sustainable development, we have decided to support a research path on education for sustainable development, together with Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli.

The initiative, which began in June 2023, consists of a two-year research programme, run in conjunction with the academic world and designed to deepen education for sustainable development in Italy.