LABGEONET. An Italian University Geographical Laboratories Network

The experience gained in several scientific meetings, realized in recent years within the community of Italian geographers, has shown how in Italian universities the research and teaching in Geography and in Historical Geography are increasingly linked to the presence of laboratories, structures capable of combining educational activities with those of research. In the light of the conceptual renewal in cartographic interpretation, of the recovery of topological space, landscape logic and political and cartography’s social objectives the Association of Italian Geographers (AGEI), in collaboration with the Italian Center for Historical-Geographical Studies (CISGE), promoted the creation of LABGEONET, the network of Italian university geo-cartographical laboratories. The first step of this project was the launch of a census of all the geo-cartographic laboratories existing in the Italian universities. The collection of online data, which took place through a special form, has brought out a varied and interesting panorama of the operating structures: from those more oriented towards geomatics to those that refer to theories coming from critical cartography; from structures specialized in the history of cartography and in the use of geo-historical sources to those aimed at developing local plans, participatory planning, social geography, etc.