Francesco Leoni

In 2022, he obtained a PhD with an interdisciplinary scholarship, supported by the PhD Programme in Design and the PhD Programme in Urban Planning, Design and Policy. His research is in the field of design for policy, investigating, through this perspective, the design and practice systems of data-centred public sector innovations (innovations in the public sector focused on the exploitation of non-traditional digital data) and their impact on policy-making.

Since 2016, he has been collaborating with the Department of Design at the Politecnico di Milano on European research and consultancy projects with bodies such as DG Enterprise and Industry, Joint Research Centre – EU Policy Lab and EIT Food. He has mainly carried out tasks related to the dissemination of research (especially digital), in particular creating digital mappings, infographics and graphic-visual communication elements. He is also involved in the design of research methodologies, data analysis, scientific writing, report and deliverable writing, analysis and evaluation of funding calls, research proposals, educational projects, organisation of seminars and lectures, and facilitation of co-design sessions.

He has worked on projects with local government and the public sector in Italy (Lombardy Region, Municipality of Milan), with the private sector (Sanofi Genzyme) and the third sector (Caritas). Within the Department of Design, he is a permanent member of two research groups: the Design Policy Lab (a research laboratory of the Department of Design focused on the theme of design applied to policy making) and Polifactory (the makerspace/fab-lab and large research infrastructure of the Politecnico di Milano).

He is part of the international Designing Policy Network.