Over 70 Organizations Join Forces for Tourism and Digital Innovation in Sardinia

SASSARI – A packed hall and strong institutional turnout marked yesterday’s event “Tourism Development and Digital Territories”, hosted at the Pissarello Hall of the University of Sassari’s Department of Humanities and Social Sciences. The meeting brought together more than 70 organizations involved in tourism, territorial innovation, and digital transition programs coordinated by the University of Sassari.

Taking the floor were University Rector Gavino Mariotti, Regional Ministers Franco Cuccureddu (Tourism, Handicrafts and Trade) and Giuseppe Meloni (Planning, Budget and Governance), Gianluca Cadeddu, program manager of the e.Ins innovation ecosystem, and full professors Veronica Camerada and Luca Pulina from the host university.

At the heart of the event was the presentation of the activities led by Spoke 2 of the e.INS – Ecosystem of Innovation for Next Generation Sardinia, which has seen the University sign around 50 cooperation agreements with a wide and varied network: municipalities, regional consortia, cultural foundations, local action groups (GAL and FLAG), park authorities, museums, and third sector organizations. The total investment involved exceeds 4 million euros.

Several experimental initiatives were also unveiled, designed to promote territorial innovation and tourism development in 20 Sardinian municipalities. Among them:

• C-WISE (PNRR RAISE, Spoke 1): building inclusive smart cities with AI and digital twin technologies;
• SKET-Monitor (PNRR FAIR, Spoke 9): intelligent systems for monitoring fragile areas using artificial intelligence;
• InnTerr (FSC, Sardinia Region): a project focused on innovation, inclusion, and interdisciplinary studies in the Nuoro area;
• T3 – Tourism, Technologies, Trends (FSC, Sardinia Region): aimed at applied research, innovation, and advanced training in the tourism sector.

The meeting also offered a preview of two major outputs from joint research by the university’s economic geography and computer science teams: the study “Tourism Under the Lens” and the new MAIA platform (Monitoring and Artificial Intelligence Analysis). MAIA is an integrated infrastructure for data collection, territorial analysis, forecasting, and the development of data-driven public policies.