Italy - UK Partnership

PARTNERSHIP | Summer 2019 16 Wellness Valley The first international district for knowledge on wellness and quality of life F ounded in 2003, the Wellness Valley initiative made Romagna, one of two areas forming the Emilia-Romagna Region, the first international district for knowledge on wellness and quality of life. Local heritage, people, traditions, history, art, nature, food and wine contributed to create the first “integrated wellness ecosystem” experience in the world. The cultural and social environment of the area allowed people to make health- oriented lifestyle choices: regular physical exercise, healthy diet and positive mental approach. Romagna has the largest active population in Italy, 10% more compared to the national average. With more than two thousand years of history, the area offers a priceless patrimony. 9 monuments in the region, most of them in Ravenna, are enlisted as World Heritage Sites. Other cities such as Rimini, Cesena and Forlì also offer historic artistic gems: the bell tower of San Mercuriale and the Cathedral with its cloister immersed in the garden are certainly worth a visit to Forlì, while Cesena houses the Malatesta Library, the only example of a convent humanistic library perfectly preserved with its furniture and equipment. Rimini, a city dating back to Roman times, offers extraordinary artistic evidence of its origins such as the Surgeon’s House, the Tiberius Bridge, the Arch of Augustus and the Malatesta Temple, which contains works by world-wide famous Italian painters, from Giotto to Piero della Francesca. The historical and scenic beauty of the Wellness Valley is also evident in its villages, fortresses and castles that, from the top of the hills, have been glancing at the sea for millennia. In the area, it is possible to have a lifestyle focused on wellness, with the quality of life being certified by the international network of Good Living Cities and the Slow City Movement. THEWELLNESS ECOSYSTEM The Wellness Ecosystem is a social and cultural model focusing on people and their health that creates the conditions to allow them to make healthy lifestyle decisions. Wellness is an individual choice and can be found in every place and at every stage of life. Today, more than 250 public and private stakeholders are actively involved in the Wellness Valley project. Thanks to the combined work of many actors it is possible to activate and develop projects to bring benefits to tens of thousands of people. The Wellness Foundation leads and coordinates the stakeholders’ work through dedicated workshops on the themes “Health and Prevention”, “Sustainable Economic Development” and “Tourism”. INVOLVED STAKEHOLDERS 75 Municipalities 25 Schools 12 Spa centres 68 Wellness related activities 88 Hotels 30 Companies 15 University departments UNIVERSITY For the last 10 years the University of Bologna has been involved in the Wellness Valley creating schools, departments, undergraduate courses, graduate and master degrees that study the quality of life in an integrated way, from exercise to nutrition, from biomedical engineering to behavioural psychology, from architecture to urban planning, from cultural heritage science to the environment. As many as 10,300 students are involved in wellness lifestyle studies.