The University of Siena (UNISI) is one of the oldest in Europe with a well-established tradition of teaching and research at high levels. Ranked first among middle-sized (i.e., with 10,000 to 20,000 enrolled students) Italian universities (Censis 2018), it has a strong international reputation for teaching and research.
Research work is conducted at the Department of Social, Political and Cognitive Sciences (DISPOC) at the University of Siena. DISPOC is a multidisciplinary department, involved in national, European and international research projects. In 2018, DISPOC was recognised as a Department of Excellence and awarded a research grant of 5.4-million euros over five years for a project which includes a research focus on populism, precarisation of life spheres and multilingualism. The contribution of UNISI to this work package is underpinned by the expertise of team members in deliberative experiments, mass and elite surveys, research in the field of political representation, and European integration. UNISI is the recipient of several international research projects generated by both EU-related programmes (7th Framework Programme, H2020, COST, IMI, People, Capacity, ERC, Erasmus+ etc.) such as INTUNE (6th Framework Programme), EUROPOLIS (7th Framework Programme), TRANSWORLD (7th Framework Programme), EUINDEPTH (7th Framework Programme), EUENGAGE (H2020) and IMAJINE (H2020) and private institutions (e.g., German Marshall Fund of the United States/Compagnia di San Paolo, Monte dei Paschi, etc.).
Team members
Francesco Marangoni is the principal investigator of the Italian team. He is associate professor in political science at the Department of Social, Political and Cognitive Sciences at the University of Siena where he teaches Public Policy Analysis, Political Communication, and Social Science Methods. He has received his PhD in “Political Science, Comparative and European Politics” from the University of Siena. He is affiliated to the Centre for the Study of Political Change (CIRCaP) at the University of Siena. His main research interests focus on political elite, political institutions and European integration. He has more recently participated in the H2020 project EUENGAGE: Bridging the gap between public opinion and European leadership, involving the organisation of an online deliberative forum to study the micro-foundational mechanisms of representation and an elite survey administered to parliamentarians of ten EU member states.