Research and development in the field of social sciences and humanities

Research services occupy a main space within Next. In this field, Next products ranges from the elaboration of the research design to the construction of tools of research and data collection to the valorization of results coming from research activities (reports, publications, multimedia products, dissemination events).

Next carries out research activities in different fields of interest:

Socio-cultural and touristic approach (context and scenario analysis, evaluation of impact of public policies or events regarding the tourist systems, action-research with territorial communities)

Social and welfare (analysis on the the prison system, on pathological addiction phenomena, on youth, on the third sector)

Social innovation and urban transformation (qualitative and ethnographic research, trends analysis).

The attendance of different contexts and subjects of investigation is translated in a method of work inspired to multidisciplinary perspectives and privileges heterogeneous methodological approaches and tools:action-research and Living Lab approach / territorial animation and participative planning/ qualitative and ethnographic investigation / psycho-social approach In our research activities, these methodological approaches and tools contribute to the construction of new data through the integration of heterogeneous sources.

Without overlooking the analysis and the quantitative data, the research method adopted by Next privileges the construction of original data through the microphysics observation of contexts of analysis.

The ethnographic, qualitative and transdisciplinar research perspective of reports elaborated by Next allows to produce accounts and current interpretations of the studied reality and to provide to interested actors useful indications on how intervening on economy, institutions and society. With this regards the type of research we produce can be defined “applied research”.

Digital research and analysis on informational flows shared on social media platform is also among the areas of interests of our research projects.