University of Padua

Over the past two years, 40 master’s students have engaged closely with Via Querinissima through an intensive and inspiring collaboration with the Veneto Region headquarters team. Their work, developed within the course unit Valorizzazione turistica e promozione del paesaggio at the University of Padua, may bring new perspectives to the route, generating ideas that may inspire its future development.

The course unit is part of the Master’s programmes in Landscape Science and Tourism, Culture, Sustainability, and is led by Professor Chiara Rabbiosi. With over fifteen years of research experience in critical tourism geographies and heritage-making, Professor Rabbiosi is a committed advocate of active learning and the mutual relationship between teaching, research, and public engagement. She is also a member of the Via Querinissima Scientific Committee and of OCEAN—the Open Council of Europe Academic Networks.

In the 2024/2025 academic year, the challenge for students was to imagine innovative implementation proposals for Via Querinissima by focusing on underexplored themes. Their task: to reflect on how these could emerge at the intersections with other cultural routes, and within the frameworks of regenerative tourism, taking into consideration how tourism and cultural heritage can impact or include social and spatial vulnerabilities, as well as an evolving, reflective sense of Europeanness—where places and communities are seen as open, dynamic realities.