The Sant’Anna School, along with 40 other Universities and Research Institutions, founded the APEnet (Universities and Research Centers for Public engagement) Association

The Sant’Anna School, along with 40 other Universities and Research Institutions, founded the APEnet Association. APEnet (Universities and Research Centers for Public engagement) was originally established in 2018 and informally shaped into a network. The network has become an association in order to consolidate and make visible the role that universities and research instituitions play in shaping proposals and projects brought together in the concept of "public engagement" as a set of values and institutional actions aimed at generating social, cultural and economic growth.

The 41 founding partners, that will be soon joined by several new associates currently in the process of applying for their memebership, aim  at progressively overcoming the distance between research and society in order to foster new challenges that take into account peculiarities of each Partner and amplifying their impact beyond the University and regional borders. The APEnet association will be a space for sharing experience and enhancing the knowledge and skills needed to promote a radical cultural breakthrough aimed at investing Unviersities and Research Institutions into being role models and trailblazers for a more "inclusive growth" of the Country.

The APEnet association will also be open to the productive world, the third sector, to public institutions as well as to citizens and to the school system, in order to establish common goals and projects. APEnet, in collaboration with the various institutional actors of the Italian research system  (such as Mur, National University Council, Crui, Anvur) contributes to the monitoring and impact assessment of "public engagement" initiatives.