On Tuesday, October 20, the ceremony for the signing of the nonbinding agreement among Sapienza, ANCI (National Association of Italian Municipalities) and HCI (Health City Institute) took place.

"In the coming decades the importance of our cities in health promotion will be increasingly strategic and the agreement with ANCI and the Health City Institute - says Rector Gaudio - represents an important opportunity to plan joint activities aimed at achieving a positive synergy between scientific knowledge, training and public health needs, as communicated by Italian municipalities, especially during the current emergency".

The agreement aims to combine resources and expertise to promote and protect public health and collective welfare needs, as communicated by the cities. It is estimated that in the coming decades the urban population will represent 70% of the global population: in Italy, 37% of the population lives in the 14 metropolitan cities, and the issue of urban health is becoming a priority for action for the mayors.

In particular, the agreement intends to organise free training courses and projects in the municipalities aimed at creating professional and administrative figures expert at managing public health issues, who can be traced back to the figure of the Health City Manager. The HCM is a professional with defined skills who work together with the mayor and local administrators to coordinate and implement actions concerning public health, developing innovative and inclusive solutions in response to the requests made by citizens.

For this new professional figure Sapienza, HCI and ANCI have adopted a core curriculum, validated by a group of national and international experts.

In this context, three training courses will be held in three Italian metropolitan cities, lasting 80 hours and each of them will be open to a maximum of 40 young people under 35, to be selected through specific calls for proposals. The young people trained will then be called upon to define and implement projects on specific Municipalities in order to generate an immediate impact on the territories thanks to specific work grants and scholarships. 

The courses will also address:

• urban-associated disease prevention through the adoption of correct lifestyles;
• the social and psychological impact of the urban environment on life quality;
• city architecture, urban planning and territorial planning;
• political-administrative dialogue and decision support with the different institutional levels.

Moreover, with this agreement Sapienza, HCI and ANCI undertake to organise, by using their resources, conferences, seminars, studies, research and documentation initiatives, cultural and scientific events to promote health in cities.

Among many others, the ceremony was attended by the Rector of Sapienza Eugenio Gaudio, ANCI vice-president Roberto Pella, the President of Health City Institute Andrea Lenzi, ANCI Deputy Secretary General Antonella Galdi, AD Sport e Salute SpA Vito Cozzoli, ANCI National Council Chairman and C14+ Chairman Enzo Bianco and the Councilor Flavio Siniscalchi, Head of the Department for Youth Policy and Universal Civil Service.