Dear friends, dear colleagues, alumni and students,

On October 26, 2023, our colleague and great friend Serena Vicari left this world. We mourn her deeply.

We remember her innate elegance, in deportment and speech, her equanimity, her humour and irony, her support and care of the younger generations. We shall miss her deeply.

A professor of Sociology at the University of Milano Bicocca, she taught Urban sociology courses and coordinated the Doctoral Programme URBEUR. Her scholarly work focussed on contemporary urban change, with an approach that was always methodologically and theoretically rigorous, but at the same time highly innovative in identifying emerging trends and dialoguing with other disciplines. She published extensively – also with many members of the ESDP/ISDP network – in urban theory, urban sociology, and social innovation, in both Italian and English.

In our international teaching and research networks, she has been an invaluable protagonist in many (ad)ventures. To name just the most memorable: several editions of the European Module in Spatial Development Planning (EMSDP) in Newcastle and Leuven; the Social Innovation, Governance, and Communities (SINGOCOM) FP5 research project; the Social Services, Welfare State and Places (S.O.S. COHESION) COST Action; the Erasmus Intensive Programme editions of 2007 and 2008 in Milan, which she organised together with Marianna d’Ovidio and  Chiara Tornaghi.

Farewell dear Serena, your beautiful smile, mind and intellect will always stay with us.

Flavia Martinelli and Frank Moulaert on behalf of the ESDP network