Publishing date: 8 October 2026 Immagine notizia Immagine Paragrafo The Smarter Research Centre of the University of Insubria is a scientific partner in the national project «Open-Air Laboratory for the Development of Sustainable Digital Villages 2023–2026», promoted by Open Fiber and Enea together with the Municipality of Pitigliano, with the support of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (Ingv).Presented on 6 October in Rome to a high-level institutional panel, the project has developed, starting from the experience of the village of Pitigliano, a model of a sustainable digital village with strong potential for technological scalability and replication in other small municipalities. The model combines Open Fiber’s Ultra Broadband (UBB) network, Edge Computing technology, data-driven services and the V-ERA Urban Platform.As part of this initiative, the Smarter Research Centre contributed its scientific methodology expertise, working both on the territorial assessment phase and on the scalability and replicability of the Digital Village model. In particular, the project adopted the Urban Check-Up Model (Ucum), a territorial assessment methodology developed by the Centre to analyse and evaluate the level of digitalisation of urban infrastructure and services, identify innovation priorities and support local authorities in making investment decisions.The Smarter Research Centre also developed, as part of the project, an innovative multidimensional methodology for clustering Italian small municipalities, designed to facilitate the scalability of the pilot project to small municipalities with fewer than 5,000 inhabitants, which account for around 70% of all Italian municipalities. Immagine The work of the Smarter Research Centre has taken on significance beyond the Pitigliano pilot project: the Ucum methodology has been digitalised by City Green Light, a project partner, and integrated into Enea’s PELL platform (Public Energy Living LAB) as one of the tools developed by Enea to support the digital and energy transition of local areas. It is now being proposed to municipalities as a standard assessment tool. The Ucum Enea tool also features the University of Insubria logo, bearing witness to the scientific contribution made by the University.For the University of Insubria, this represents an important achievement that highlights the relationship between basic and applied research, showing how a methodology developed within a research centre can be transformed into a concrete tool, validated at national level, to support public administrations and territorial innovation processes.«With the Urban Check-Up Model, we start by taking a snapshot of the level of innovation of data-driven services and the adequacy of the management model adopted by the local administration in relation to citizens’ needs and the municipality’s transition goals. We then identify the gaps to be addressed and the priorities for innovation investment. Pitigliano allowed us to test the tools developed by the Smarter Centre and, together with the project’s partner ecosystem, to build a four-phase roadmap that can be replicated in many other villages and unions of municipalities, accelerating and guiding the digital innovation processes of local areas», explains Roberta Rita Pezzetti, Scientific Director of the Smarter Research Centre at the University of Insubria.Attached below are the press release issued by Open Fiber and the programme of the event. Documenti Documento Press release Open Fiber borgo digitale Documento Evento 6 ottobre