The paper develops a comparative analysis of the cultural and creative competencies within the educational offer of the University of Bologna, using multiple sources and tools. This contribution is based on the hypothesis that the narration around the value of the cultural and creative disciplines in academia needs to be critically reviewed. This path of observation, mapping, narration, and visualisation resulted in being consistent with the critical role that cultural and creative disciplines have played at the University of Bologna since the 1970s; by developing unprecedented educational models and impacting the territory through the generation of new economic models and the development of a diverse system of cultural and creative industries. The methodological approach of the research is based on a comparative analysis of the main documents regulating the cultural and creative economy on the international, national, and regional levels. The second stage of the research process was built on an explorative strategy based on desk analysis to create the dataset. The question arose about how to make a database accessible to a broader audience: the conclusions show that data visualisations, as a creative tool, can enable story-doing processes and thus create awareness and value.

The current emergencies such as climate change and sustainable development, are outlining the responsibility we have as researchers and designers to transform disruptive technologies into action/reaction tools able to address and overcome the nowadays challenges. From this perspective, as designers, we indeed believe that the key to change lies in human behavior, and thus precisely in this direction design can impact using disruptive technologies in raising awareness by resulting into behavioral change. Specifically, this paper aims to encompass how advanced technologies such as Data Visualization and Immersive Realities can cooperate in order to activate proactive behaviors in contemporary society through a careful analysis of opportunities and limitations. On the one hand, Data Visualization has always been used as a tool for analyzing and communicating emergencies (Snow, Nightingale, etc.), on the other hand, immersive realities are more recently beginning to explore this field. It is indeed at the meeting point between technology and Human Interface that the biggest gaps emerge, sometimes making the deployment of these technologies fail, due to sensory, sociological, psychological, and cognitive limitations. Have we ever wondered, for example, whether the rules of Gestalt and Bertin's theories, belonging to the first half of the 1900s, are sufficient today in making effective Data Visualization? Are we relying too much on the "astonishing" effect of immersive realities, paying more attention to their use rather than to the conveyance of the content? This paper attempts to critically analyze – in a multidisciplinary way and through a historical analysis, case studies, and personal experimentation – the use of disruptive technologies, such as XR and Data Visualization, trying to clarify their limits, potentialities, and plausible common application fields. The objective of the study is in fact related to the determination of possible theoretical and practical approaches for the development of validation tests regarding the use of disruptive technologies and their relationship with the Human Interface.

Communicating complex environmental phenomena requires forms of visualization that go beyond analytical accuracy to support engagement, interpretation, and reflection. Eco-visualization addresses this challenge by combining data representation with aesthetic and narrative elements, but its creation often demands technical skills. This paper presents a Human–AI co-creative pipeline for the design of eco-visualizations, in which AI acts as an active collaborator throughout the visual creation process. The approach integrates generative image creation, AI-assisted segmentation, and data-driven color mapping into a structured workflow that supports iterative interaction between human and AI. We implement this pipeline as a web-based system and evaluate it through a user study with a mixed-method approach. Results show that while the system is perceived as engaging and conceptually innovative, users experience notable usability challenges and cognitive load during interaction. These findings highlight key tensions in Human–AI co-creation, particularly between control and ease of use. Overall, this work contributes a concrete design approach to Human–AI collaboration in eco-visualization and provides empirical insights that inform the development of more accessible and effective co-creative tools for communicating complex environmental data.