CO Gruppo is a consulting firm that has been shaping innovation and organisational change in the public sector since 1990. Established by academics from the Department of Political Science at the University of Bologna, the company brings together research-based insight and hands-on expertise to deliver results that matter.
Our mission is to help public and private organisations achieve their goals and tackle everyday challenges with clarity and insight. We work across three main areas: consulting, training and research, but each project is shaped around the client’s needs and the context in which they operate.
Backed by more than three decades of expertise, CO Gruppo is today recognised as a leading partner for the Italian public sector.
Making good work matter
We have long experience in helping municipalities join forces and deliver services more effectively. This includes supporting inter-municipal unions, guiding mergers, and designing shared-service solutions. In recent years, we have focused on areas that shape people’s everyday lives: stronger social services, more accessible digital solutions at both regional and local level, and practical guidelines that help local governments raise the quality of the services they provide.
Justice remains a core part of what we do. For many years, we have worked alongside courts and judicial offices, providing change management, applied research, digital transformation projects and impact assessments — and we continue to do so today.
Our experience also spans the non-profit sector, where we support social cooperatives and associations through consultancy and research on their organisational models.
We keep close ties with the University of Bologna, offering internships to students and collaborating on projects that bridge academic research and practice.
For decades we’ve been working on sustainability and on the impacts organisations have on societies and communities. We do this with public bodies, private companies and the third sector. We support social reporting and alignment with European frameworks, turning compliance into organisational learning and a driver of innovation.
We help employers develop and share good practice in workplace welfare with a gender-aware and inclusive approach. We also bring together public–private partnerships that promote subsidiarity, connecting larger, well-resourced organisations with smaller ones to design practical, shared initiatives.
We support companies in obtaining “Benefit Corporation” status under Italian law (Società Benefit) and in carrying out the assessments needed to maintain it. We are proud to be a Benefit Corporation ourselves, living by the same values we help others to embrace.
Bringing change into play
We do many things, but always with the same care and commitment. The projects below offer a glimpse into the work we are most proud of in recent years.
EntrePubl
Entrepubl is a European project co-funded by Erasmus+ that strengthens entrepreneurial and digital competences in public administrations. Drawing on the EntreComp and DigComp frameworks, it involved partners from Belgium, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Romania and Slovakia. The project developed training tools, certification models and policy guidance to help civil servants approach challenges with creativity and initiative. CO Gruppo played a key role in drafting the methodological guidelines that shaped the training curriculum, turning competences into practical drivers of organisational innovation and better public services.
CapoD Project
CapoD is a business network supported by the Metropolitan City of Bologna that brings together major companies in the area – including Lamborghini, CRIF, Emil Banca, IMA, CAAB, TPER, the Bologna Airport and Philip Morris – to promote corporate welfare with a focus on gender equality and inclusion. Alongside co-design workshops and knowledge-sharing labs with the companies, we also managed the institutional relations between the Metropolitan City and the consortium. One of the key outcomes was the creation of the “Good Practices to Share” catalogue, later updated with a second edition to reflect the most recent initiatives.
Regional and Local Digital Agendas – Emilia-Romagna
Together with the Emilia-Romagna Region, we contributed to the design of the new Regional Digital Agenda 2025–2029, leading stakeholder consultations through focus groups, workshops and expert interviews. Alongside Lepida – the regional in-house company for digital transformation – we also supported local authorities in drafting their Local Digital Agendas, working with unions of municipalities, provinces and individual councils. Our role combined methodological design with hands-on facilitation, helping territories translate strategic goals into concrete actions for more effective and accessible digital services.
https://digitale.regione.emilia-romagna.it/strategia/strategia-2025-2029
Social Services Projects
With the Municipality of Ancona, we led a process of re-engineering social service workflows to improve the management of internal activities and enhance the quality and efficiency of services delivered to the community. This was carried out through organisational analysis, survey design and analysis, and a series of eight full-day workshops involving more than 50 social workers and administrative staff.
In partnership with ANCI Nazionale (the Italian Association of Municipalities) and the Italian Ministry of Labour, we also contributed to the design of the Ditgital Social File (Cartella Sociale Informatizzata)— a national system aimed at standardising and integrating case records to support more effective and coordinated delivery of social services across Italy. Our role focused on defining the functional requirements and ensuring that the tool could serve both frontline staff and policy makers.
Cittalia Projects
Since 2021 we have been working with Fondazione Cittalia – the research and technical support foundation of the National Association of Italian Municipalities (ANCI) – on several large-scale projects. We first supported a national survey on the housing conditions of migrant workers in the agri-food sector, helping Cittalia gather and analyse data from municipalities across Italy. We then carried out an organisational review of the Technical Secretariat of the SAI Central Service (Italy’s national asylum and integration system). This work focused on how the Secretariat managed the huge volume of requests and communications from municipalities, and led to the design of a new digital platform that streamlines those flows, making the service more efficient and responsive. Most recently, we contributed to LGNet3, a European project funded by the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund, conducting research on housing hardship in ten Italian metropolitan cities and providing policy tools to strengthen local responses to social exclusion.
Got something in mind? Let’s shape it together!
Riccardo Crosara
Public sector Analyst and Consultant Partner of CO Gruppo
e-mail: crosara@cogruppo.it
telephone: (+39) 348 4606940
Davide Boschetti
Public sector Analyst and Consultant
e-mail: boschetti@cogruppo.it
telephone: (+39) 347 7185776