GOCCIA project officially kicks off in Milan
On 17 March 2025, the GOCCIA project (Green Opportunities to Clean-up Contaminants through an Interspecies Alliance) officially launched with a kick-off meeting hosted by the Natural History Museum of Milan.
The event opened with institutional greetings from key representatives of the Municipality of Milan: Mr Angelo Pascale, Director of the Green and Environment Department and GOCCIA Project Coordinator; Ms Elena Eva Maria Grandi, Deputy Mayor for Environment and Green; Mr Giancarlo Tancredi, Deputy Mayor for Urban Regeneration; and Mr Domenico Piraina, Director of the Culture Department and of the Natural History Museum of Milan. Their contributions highlighted the strategic importance of GOCCIA for the city’s environmental and urban policies.
The meeting brought together all project partners for the first collective alignment on objectives, work packages and upcoming activities. In attendance were representatives of the Municipality of Milan, Ambiente Italia, Climateflux, Eutropian, FROM, Open Impact, Osservatorio La Goccia, and Politecnico di Milano.
The programme also featured contributions from Ms Chiara Fabi, Cultural Heritage Conservator at the Culture Department of the Natural History Museum of Milan, and Mr Gabriele Galasso, Botanist and Herbarium Curator, who provided an overview of biodiversity in Milan and within the Goccia area.
In addition, Ms Simona Collarini, Director of the Urban Regeneration Department, together with speakers from the Politecnico di Milano and the Renzo Piano Building Workshop, presented the Bovisa–Goccia masterplan overview, outlining the broader urban transformation framework, including the future development of the adjacent Politecnico campus designed by renowned architect Renzo Piano.
The meeting was also joined by Mr José Costero, EUI expert for the GOCCIA project, and remotely by Mr Klemen Strmšnik, EUI transfer expert, as well as by the Transfer Cities — Est Ensemble Grand Paris, City of Rijeka and City of Malaga — who will accompany the project’s implementation and share insights for replication in their local contexts.
The kick-off marked the start of a shared journey to transform Milan’s former industrial area of La Goccia into a living laboratory for urban nature, testing innovative nature-based solutions for soil remediation and biodiversity enhancement.
On 18 March 2025, the consortium visited the project site in Bovisa to explore the future intervention area and discuss the next operational steps.
The journey to reconnect nature and the city has officially begun in Milan, with the ambition to make GOCCIA’s approach and actions scalable and replicable in other urban contexts across and beyond Europe.