Study Excursion of Smart City Management Students to Ferrara

As part of the Management of Smart Cities study programme at the DOBA Faculty, we carried out a professional excursion to the Italian city of Ferrara on 21 and 22 September 2025.

The excursion is intended to connect theory with practice, apply what has been learnt to concrete cases, develop proposals for improvement, and learn about and recognise good practices in the field of smart cities. This time, the students focused on understanding Ferrara’s innovative solutions in the areas of sustainable mobility, tactical urbanism, and digital tools for resident participation.

This year, the excursion was special for the following reasons:

• In the September course Public Policies and Project Management in the Public Sector, students explored European projects and calls. We organised the excursion to Ferrara at the initiative of the lecturer, Dr Cerar, who participates in the PopUpUrbanSpaces project.
• Before departure, students had already analysed projects such as Air Break, USAGE, PopUpUrbanSpaces, and various practices of tactical urbanism. In Ferrara, they had the opportunity to build on these topics in the field.
• On the first day, through team-based research activities, they got to know the city: they tried public transport and the cycle hire system, analysed urban infrastructure and digital solutions, and examined the quality of public space. They also carried out several interviews with passers-by. They took part in an event during European Mobility Week and visited the new infrastructure for hydrogen buses as well as the PopUpUrbanSpaces pilot project, which involves residents in shaping public space.
• On the second day, at the Municipality of Ferrara, students listened to presentations by the deputy mayor for mobility and other experts, who highlighted the smart city strategy, the use of open data, digital tools for communicating with citizens, and experiences from European projects. This was followed by a tour of the Air Break project infrastructure.
• A major emphasis was on team-based research, where students created short videos with findings, reflections, and proposals, and in the final discussion with team representatives they exchanged observations and explored possibilities for transferring good practices to the Slovenian context.
• The videos created will be further incorporated into the course Public Policies and Project Management in the Public Sector, to include the other Management of Smart Cities students who could not attend the excursion and to connect the course content with practice in the field for deeper learning.

At the end of the excursion, the students emphasised that Ferrara offers numerous innovative solutions that could be transferred to Slovenian cities—while it is essential to consider the specific cultural, historical, and spatial context. The Italian city of Ferrara places a strong emphasis on people: on connection, collaboration, and involving residents in the city’s development, as well as on the careful preservation of cultural heritage. At the same time, they are very successfully developing technological aspects—from the use of sensors and the management of large volumes of data to the development and already the introduction of the first hydrogen buses, mostly with the support of European projects. On the other hand, in the students’ view, Ferrara lacks a stronger overarching structure, measurable indicators, and a holistic approach. In Slovenia, however, students observe the opposite: especially in larger cities, structure and achieving indicators (KPIs) are at the forefront, which certainly ensures transparency but often hampers innovation, slows development, and involves residents too little in all phases of designing and introducing innovations.

The excursion once again proved that field-based learning is an exceptional opportunity to connect theory with practice and to strengthen the competences of future smart city managers.

A few snapshots: