This presentation was used during the European Conference on Quality in Official Statistics (Q2022) in order to illustrate the Italian Open government Strategy on cohesion policy that is relying on the OpenCoesione initiative coordinated by the Evaluation unit of the Department for Cohesion Policies of the Italian Presidency of the Council of Ministers since 2011. Starting from the 2013 the OpenCoesione initiative is supported by "At the School of OpenCohesion (ASOC)" - an educational programme aimed at promoting and developing the innovative principles of active citizenship in secondary schools through the civic monitoring of projects financed by cohesion funds. Within the scope of the activities devoted to the development of statistical literacy the Italian national statistical Institute - ISTAT signed in 2018 (and renewed in 2020 ) an agreement for collaborating in the ASOC project and promoting the statistical culture also amon the teachers involved in ASOC by the means of specific and dedicated course named Statistical Culture+.

1. Understanding the territory through data,
data journalism and civic engagement: the
ASOC project from Italy to Europe
June, 9 2022 Session 30
Paving the way to statistical literacy
Patrizia Collesi - Italian National Institute of Statistics
Simona De Luca - Evaluation and Analysis Unit, Dept. for Cohesion Policies - Italian
Presidency of the Council of Ministers

2. OpenCoesione: the Italian open
government strategy on cohesion policy
The OpenCoesione initiative is coordinated by the Evaluation unit of the Department for
Cohesion Policies of the Italian Presidency of the Council of Ministers.

3. OpenCoesione: main goals and benefits
of an initiative based on open data
A more efficient, effective and transparent use of resources and destination
of funds consistent with people’s needs
Improve decision making and policy design at different governative levels,
also by increasing access to and quality of information
Broadening the opportunities for analyses and evaluations on relevant policy
issues
Increasing involvement of stakeholders and civic partners in knowing how
the public money is spent and pushing for results
www.opencoesione.gov.it/en

4. At the School of OpenCohesion
OPEN DATA, DATA JOURNALISM AND CIVIC MONITORING
ON COHESION POLICY FOR EUROPEAN STUDENTS
“At the School of OpenCohesion” (“A Scuola di OpenCoesione” in Italian) is carried out by the
Department for Cohesion Policies in collaboration with the Italian Ministry of Education and
with the Representation in Italy by the European Commission

5. At the School of OpenCohesion:
raising a new generation of awareness
At the School of OpenCohesionl (ASOC) is an
innovative interdisciplinary educational
project aimed at high school students.
By working on a storytelling research based
on cohesion projects, they experience how
cohesion policy affects their territories
ASOC engage High School students and teachers in civic monitoring researches to discover
how public money is spent.
The project promotes the principles of aware citizenship, encourages responsible use of ICT,
including open data, and social media, fosters civic monitoring of public funding, also
aiming to implement and transfer innovative practices at European level, strengthen the
educational sector, build a community of active and aware citizens, improve civic
engagement, promote the acquisition of statistical and digital skills and key competences
among the students.

6. The structure of the ASOC course
programme: 4 lessons
Each class develops a single civic monitoring project, which will comprise freely-selected
creative content that summarises the research carried out concisely (video, infographics,
dedicated website) to be produced at the end of Lesson 4 (final lesson), using the materials
collected during the entire programme, with the aim of representing the results of the
research carried out effectively and thoroughly, according to a clearly-defined narrative and
with the support of selected, analyzed and appropriately represented statistical data
www.ascuoladiopencoesione.it

7. The Italian ASOC project: overall
numbers
From the first pilot in Italy (2013) the project reached overall
more than 30,000 students and 3,000 teachers with 800 monitored
projects freely selected and approx. 800 territorial networks

8. European Member States
participating in the ASOC EU project

9. ASOC EU 2019-2021: overall
numbers

10. The ASOC partnerships
The ASOC project is based on partnerships to
guarantee professional support to the teams of
students in order to elaborate their civic monitoring
researches.
In the Italian experience the ASOC network includes:
✔ Europe Direct/EDC [European Documentation
Centre] Information Centres;
✔ Local NGOs active in Cohesion Policy issues;
✔ Local branches of National statistical institute, to
promote the dissemination of statistical culture
with the aim of strengthening the role of statistical
analysis in the elaboration of the civic monitoring
researches.

11. The activities of the ASOC partners
✔ Remote learning with the ASOC
coordination team via participation in
dedicated webinars
✔ Project mentoring and tutoring
✔ Support for coordination between school
and external entities
✔ Support for communication of activities
and for the organisation of events

12. Istat collaboration with the Italian
ASOC educational programme
Within the scope of the activities devoted to the development of statistical
literacy the Italian national statistical Institute - Istat signed in 2018 (and
renewed in 2020 ) an agreement for collaborating in the ASOC project.
The specific contribution Istat was intended to give regards a first
approach with statistical literacy: training and support on official
statistical data at two levels:
✔ a practical support
✔ training modules

13. The phases of Istat collaboration
within the Italian ASOC project
Statisticians support teachers and students in
finding statistical data and understanding their
value. Istat territorial experts:
✔ provide data upon request or guide teachers
and teams of students to find them in the
official websites
✔ guide to download and customize statistical
tables from the corporate website
✔ help to build simple statistical indicators and
how to interpret them
✔ prepare lessons explaining Istat website, and
its thematic sections as well as other official
websites.

14. The “Statistical literacy+” course for
ASOC teachers
Learning modules for teachers who have received basic
training on the programme.
Each module is formed by lessons to go in-depth with
statistical themes explained in plain language :
✔ How to plan and conduct an official statistical survey
✔ The Italian national statistical system
✔ The sources of official statistics
✔ Infographics and visualizations: How to
communicate and visualise images with statistical
data
✔ Environmental data
✔ Territorial statistics
✔ Find and narrate data. New forms of communication
to tell data in a coherent framework
✔ Communicate official statistical data with social
media
✔ Plan events with official data

15. Patrizia Collesi - pcollesi@istat.it
Simona De Luca - sim.deluca@governo.it
Thank you!