Luigi Cernigliaro

My PhD research explores how festivals and cultural events can evolve from sites of environmental concern into laboratories for sustainability innovation, through three interconnected studies that identify the theoretical, policy, and organisational conditions enabling this shift. In November 2025, I successfully defended my PhD thesis, "Festivals and Cultural Events as Laboratories for Sustainability Transformation: A Multi-Level Analysis of Theory, Policy, and Organisational Change", completing with honours the PhD programme in Management: Sustainability, Innovation, and Healthcare at Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna.

At the Institute of Economics of Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, I contribute to the Horizon Europe project OpenMusE (An Open, Scalable Data-to-Policy Pipeline for European Music Ecosystems), working on the work packages “Music, Society and Citizenship” and “Music Diversity and Circulation”. My role has involved identifying indicators and datasets for analysing sustainability performance, evaluating cultural policies, and preparing and administering a questionnaire aimed at SMEs and music industry entrepreneurs. I have also collaborated with international partners in drafting periodic project reports and disseminating project activities.