At the School of OpenCoesion (ASOC)

A Scuola di OpenCoesione (ASOC) is an innovative educational programme aimed at promoting and developing principles of active, responsible citizenship in middle and secondary schools, getting students involved in civic monitoring and research of projects financed with the help of Italian and European cohesion policy. ASOC was created in 2013 within the scope of OpenCoesione and is pursued in collaboration with Italy’s Ministry of Education and Representatives of the European Commission in Italy. 

For the 2019-202 school year, the English-language version, At the School of OpenCohesion for EU-wide experimentation of ASOC was held with the support of the European Commission’s DG REGIO and the involvement of students from schools in Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Portugal and Spain. For the 2023-2024 school year, the project will be held for the first time in Slovenia. 

During prior school years, middle and secondary schools selected by Italy’s Ministry of Education successfully conducted further testing of the ASOC model, including “ASOC – European Territorial Cooperation (ETC)”, which saw paired schools engaged in select projects from the Italy-Croatia and Italy-Southern France Interreg programmes, and “ASOC Middle Schools”, for which ten schools were involved in an adapted form of the project for the purpose of civic education.

ASOC is divided into three tracks, each with its own specific features and dedicated awards. Teachers who wish to apply must choose one:

ASOC in Italian

• ASOC Secondo Grado: A track in Italian for upper secondary schools
• ASOC Primo Grado: A track in Italian for lower secondary schools

Multilingual ASOC 

● ASOC in English: held in English for secondary schools. Teams choosing to participate in the English-language ASOC must select a project financed by European funding (i.e. ERDF, ESF). 

The objective of each team is to conduct a research study on a specific theme with regard to socio-economic, environmental and/or cultural aspects concerning their community starting from a project financed by way of cohesion policies concerning the topic of choice. This project is to be selected based on data published on the OpenCoesione portal in order to assess who public policies are working to improve the local community. 

Schools may choose to include themes of the ASOC educational programme within the scope of their civic education programmes and as content for career-training programmes. 

Participating educators are also offered two 25-hour training programmes recognised by the Ministry of Education and with various specialisation options (for details, see the page Teacher training).

The series ASOC Stories has been online since May 2022. This monthly series offers stories on the impact of civic monitoring conducted by the students involved in the A Scuola di OpenCoesione project regarding projects financed by cohesion policy in Italy. 

Here you will find a list of all projects selected for research by the students who participated in the various editions of A Scuola di OpenCoesione (ASOC), including related metadata in CSV format.