The Santagata Foundation for the Economy of Culture supports the Palazzo Ducale Fondazione per la Cultura as a strategic consultant for the SWITCH – Strategies and Tools for Digital Transformation in Culture call, promoted by the Compagnia di San Paolo Foundation.

The intervention aims to consolidate the institution’s digital strategies, promoting the adoption of data-driven and sustainable organizational and management models in the medium to long term.

Context

The SWITCH call from Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo is part of the Create Attractiveness mission, with the aim of supporting digital transformation in the cultural sector through multi-year strategic planning, skills development, and integration with the technology sector.

The second edition of the program (2025–2028) consolidates a model already successfully tested, which promotes data-driven approaches, strategic data management, and the hybridization between culture and technology as levers of sustainability and innovation.

Within this framework, Fondazione Santagata plays an accompanying and facilitating role for three major cultural institutions in Northern Italy, supported in the definition and implementation of their respective Digital Innovation Plans (DIPs) and 18-month executive projects.

Goals

The Doge’s Palace is undergoing a crucial phase in its development, outlined in the 2024–2029 Multi-Year Strategic Plan, which identifies three priority axes –Culture of Excellence, Community, and Networking – flanked by a transversal axis of management efficiency.

Within this framework, digital transformation is not conceived as a set of isolated technological interventions, but as a structural lever for organizational change, capable of impacting internal processes, relationships with audiences, and data governance.

The Digital Innovation Plan is therefore an operational tool aimed at transforming digitalization into a structural lever for governing the institution, capable of simultaneously impacting internal processes, data management, relationships with audiences, and organizational sustainability, in line with the Digital Development Guidelines attached to the institution’s Strategic Plan.

The accompanying work of the Santagata Foundation for the Economy of Culture is aimed at supporting the Doge’s Palace in pursuing specific objectives, directly related to the project proposal presented as part of the SWITCH call for proposals:

  • strengthen the governance of digital transformation, through the definition of a multi-year roadmap, clear roles and monitoring tools (KPIs and milestones), overcoming a logic of fragmented digital interventions;
  • integrate and enhance the existing digital ecosystem, with particular reference to the CRM system, PNRR projects (accessible site, apps, immersive systems) and key management processes, promoting interoperability, data quality and decision-making capacity;
  • digitize and optimize the institution’s key macro-processes (programming exhibitions, events, and educational activities, enhancing spaces and collections), with attention to back-office flows, management control, and operational sustainability;
  • innovate relationships with audiences by developing an integrated digital visitor journey that includes accessibility tools, content personalization, structured feedback collection, and behavior analysis;
  • strengthen internal expertise and data culture, through a training plan for staff on the strategic use of digital tools and data to support cultural programming and impact assessment.

Expected results / Impact

The support and collaboration with the Doge’s Palace aims to generate a lasting impact on multiple levels:

  • organizational, improving efficiency, coordination and programming capacity;
  • cultural, expanding access and the quality of the public experience;
  • strategic, strengthening the entity’s capacity to govern digital complexity.

Partner

  • Compagnia di San Paolo Foundation – Switch Call Promoter
  • Ducal Palace Foundation for Culture – Beneficiary, Genoa