Why do European citizens not know about European projects' impact? Davide Baruzzi, Project Manager at BAM! Cultural Strategies, tells us how PERCEIVE is going to approach the study of Cohesion Policy with innovative digital and engagement tools.

What’s your favorite part of the project?

There are two parts I love the most about PERCEIVE project.

The first one is the outreach and gamification campaign that we will be carrying out in the middle of the project's second year. I am very excited about this, a bit because it is not very common for a European research project to develop engagement activities with larger audiences and we are really looking forward to create this case study.

The second part I am really longing to see in action is the digital simulation that the University of Bologna and BAM! will develop at the end of the project. I think it is a great opportunity to play with data and get a better understanding of very complex variables in a simple way.

Do you have any specific expectation on the project?

I would like this project to make a real impact on how both European practitioners and Local Management Authorities communicate their work to citizens. We all know the EU has many glitches, but few citizens know the real extent of its impact at a regional level. Campaigns like "Europe in my Region" try to address this problem, but there is still a lot to do. In my job I saw tens of incredibly interesting and important European projects making an impact and going totally unnoticed by the local population. Having a deeper knowledge of what can improve European communication's effectiveness might be the solution.

Awareness of the European Union's impact is a key element in today's democratic discussion. Information is the main enabler of democracy and, in many cases, if a citizen doesn't know about a specific project, the result is that, for him or her, it doesn't exist.

Who do you think this project is useful for?

I think this project will be mainly useful for policy makers and EU professionals. The former to select and ask for better projects in terms of awareness and communication impact. The latter to improve communication strategies and actions.