The collaborative initiative between Milan’s Università Cattolica and Globus et Locus, supported by the Milan Chamber of Commerce, led to the creation of the RISC research laboratory. Its prime aim is to develop a systematic analysis (both theoretical and empirical) of the current reorganisation of space and time in relation to institutions and subjective experience.
Headed by Professor Mauro Magatti at the Sociology Faculty of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, the Laboratory started a permanent seminar for the exchange of experience and in-depth analysis of contemporary social dynamics.
The Laboratory is a forum that brings together academic enquiry and the knowledge of actors who operate in our evolving reality.
The Laboratory’s methodology reflects the belief that the present phase can only be understood by linking together, and fostering dialogue between, these two knowledge levels.
The Laboratory also has a inward and outward mobility programme for researchers. It seeks to construct an international network linking the principal European and global centres that address these issues.
The Laboratory has organised a number of seminars on the topics of cities, social organisation and networks:
- 27 March 2006 Meeting with Arpad Szakolczai, “The experience of time and space. Human nature and modern liquidity”
- 14 September 2006 Meeting with Gunther Teubner, “The anonymous matrix. When ‘private’ transnational actors violate human rights”
- 1 February 2007 Meeting with Patrick Le Galès “Governance tools for cities”
- 9 March 2007 Meeting with Marc Augé “Architecture and cities in the age of globalisation”
- 20 November 2007 Meeting with Vincent Kaufmann“Mobility and quality of urban life”
- 5 June 2008 Meeting with Richard Ingersoll “Flows, networks, functions. How to govern a sprawltown”
- 18 September 2008 Meeting with Nigel Thrift “How to reinvent urban policies. From the territorial to the functional”
- 11 November 2008 Meeting with Saskia Sassen“Glocal reflections on “Territory, authority, rights”