The rapid acceleration of digitalization in response to the Sars-Cov-2 pandemic in 2020 has necessitated the development of policy strategies to manage the new phase of digital transition. The public sector has been particularly impacted during critical pandemic phases, requiring the assurance of uninterrupted essential service delivery to citizens. Despite eGovernment being recognized as a crucial element for digital recovery and innovation by European institutions, there is a need to consider the potential distortive impact of poorly informed digital policies, which could worsen existing territorial inequalities and hamper national economic resilience, as exemplified in the case of Italy. To address this, the present study proposes the creation of a regional eGovernment indicator based on the recovery and resilience goals outlined in M1C1 of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan. This indicator identifies primary functional objectives for the digital transition in Public Administration. The methodology for synthesizing the indicator utilizes the Peña distance method, providing a more robust measurement compared to techniques found in the literature. Additionally, it enables the production of a spatial and temporal comparison of regional performance, offering policymakers a tailored tool to monitor recovery performance at the regional level. The indicator underscores a significant digital divide between northern and southern Italy, highlighting regions like Lazio that exhibit opposing trends compared to their respective macro-areas.

The financial and economic crisis that hit Europe since 2009 has highlighted the need to measure more effectively the impact that certain exogenous shocks can have in the social field. In order to fill this gap and to provide a statistical tool useful to measure phenomena evolving over time, we perform a non-compensatory time analysis of material deprivation in Europe by using the quantitative method known as Adjusted Mazziotta and Pareto Index (AMPI). Material deprivation is a proxy to identify the most suffering groups of people in a specific environment. We consider the material deprivation as the sum of economic stress and forced lack of durable goods. Using Eurostat EU-SILC data, we aim at determining which countries have suffered the most material deprivation and identifying clusters of deprivation. We also determine how material deprivation is evolved over time, from 2005 to 2019. Subsequently, through Influence Analysis, the robustness of the index obtained is evaluated. Our results show that the material deprivation gap between Eastern and Mediterranean countries and all the remaining countries, which already existed before the economic crisis, seems to have widened in the years up to 2015.

The increasing trend of population aging has heightened interest in public transport policies that promote active aging. Given the limited availability of public funds, it is crucial to identify best practices and methodologies to guide public policy investments effectively. This study underscores the importance of thorough development, testing, and ex-post validation of hypotheses in transport policymaking for the elderly. The research, which was based on the analysis of survey data (250 valid interviews) collected prior to and following the trial of ‘SilverBus’ – a Demand Responsive Transport (DRT) service designed for residents over the age of 65 in Genoa, Italy – highlights the importance of the trial phase. The findings demonstrate that pre- and post-test analyses are essential to contain public costs and enhance service quality. The construction of a logistic regression model further aids in identifying significant factors influencing the willingness to use a tailored urban public mobility service dedicated to the over-65 residents. This comprehensive approach ensures that transport services are effectively aligned with the actual needs of the elderly population, promoting active aging and efficient use of public resources.

Since the early 2000s, the European Union has increasingly prioritized policies aimed at combating social exclusion, with a focus on efficient fund allocation for social and sustainable cohesion objectives. Given the multidimensional nature of material deprivation, synthetic indicators are frequently employed in the literature to measure this phenomenon. However, these indicators often lack suitability for temporal analysis, which is crucial for understanding the persistence of disadvantaged statuses over time and the effectiveness of national and international policies. This article offers an innovative examination of the trends in material deprivation among European Union Member States during the period of 2005–2022. It provides a structured reconstruction of the phenomenon at the NUTS-1 level, within the context of the major economic and health crises that have characterized the 21st century. This study’s key innovation lies in the creation of a temporal index of material deprivation, employing the AMPI method, which incorporates a partially compensatory aggregative synthesis and allows for the monitoring of the phenomenon over time against a baseline year. This novel approach ensures the capability to analyze the evolution of material deprivation over time and across regions, with 2005 as the reference year. The findings reveal a general improvement in material deprivation levels compared to 2005, despite deteriorating conditions in the Mediterranean and Baltic regions. By maintaining 2005 as the reference year, this index facilitates the ongoing monitoring of the impacts of COVID-19 and the effects of national recovery policies, as well as the resilient and sustainable social policies promoted by the RecoverEU fund.

Covid-19 emergency has produced within societies a strong impulse toward digitization policies, designed to mitigate the negative effects produced on national economies and to ensure a recovery of it. Among the objectives included by the Italian Government within the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) there is a boosting of investments in the 4.0 Transition with measures involving not only a strengthening of the digital infrastructure but also a greater diffusion of digital literacy among the population. Therefore, starting from the intervention forecasts contained within Mission 1, paragraph 2 "Digitization, innovation and competitiveness in the production system," four elementary indicators were selected from the I.Stat database in compliance with the requirements of data available from both a spatial and temporal standpoint. As a matter of fact, the study aims to trace and compare the performance obtained by the main Italian macro-areas from the point of view of digitization of the production system, considering the years preceding and concomitant to the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the intrinsic complexity of the digitization phenomenon, the development of statistic measures to study it can be directed toward the construction of synthetic indices. Throughout the present study, a synthesis methodology has been adopted that takes advantage of a non-aggregative approach: the Partially ordered set (POSET). The study is divided into sections, in which the main opportunities related to the construction of an index that evaluates the performance of the policies presented in the RRP will be outlined, as well as the characteristics and implications attributable to the use of a non-aggregative approach such as the POSET in its declination for the temporal study of socio-economic phenomena, and lastly, a presentation will be made of the results obtained from the application of the index to the Italian context.