Launch of the INSPIRE Project by Fondazione Reggio Children in partnership with the LEGO Foundation

Work is underway to establish the Carla Rinaldi Archive, based on the bequest to Fondazione Reggio Children 
and in collaboration with the Reggio Childhood Studies PhD programme

Global research and educational innovation are at the heart of this project, 
which will be based in Reggio and will also operate in Kenya and Vietnam, working closely with governments and local communities

Ethics in Artificial Intelligence and educational inclusion are among the key themes, 
with the involvement of local and international educational institutions

On the International Day dedicated to Play and playful learning, Fondazione Reggio Children launched INSPIRE (INclusive and Sustainable Playful Innovation and Research in Education) today, Thursday 11 June, at the Caffarri Centre in Reggio Emilia. This is a five-year global research initiative supported by the LEGO Foundation, aimed at promoting educational, social and policy research and innovation, drawing on the cultural legacy of the educationalist Carla Rinaldi. The project, which has been running since 1 January 2026, is now getting into full swing and will continue until 30 December 2030.

A global research project based in Reggio Emilia

The partnership with the LEGO Foundation builds on a thirty-year collaboration with the city of Reggio Emilia,aimed at improving the lives of children and teachers through the power of play and research. INSPIRE aims to ensure the right to a high-quality, inclusive and playful education, whilst also responding to situations of emergency, crisis and technological innovation around the world. The global research project will be based in Reggio Emilia, primarily at the Caffarri Research Centre, in collaboration with the PhD programme in Reggio Childhood Studies, but will involve many local, national and international educational communities.

International speakers for the launch of INSPIRE

The launch of the project featured presentations by national and international speakers. The audience included key figures from the Reggio Emilia educational approach, such as Jone Bartoli and Eletta Bertani, as well as Deanna Ferretti Veroni, who worked alongside Carla Rinaldi during the early stages of Mire’s development, alongside institutions, partners and stakeholders of the Foundation.

Cristian Fabbi, Director of Fondazione Reggio Children, who chaired the morning session, opened the day by highlighting the key themes: “INSPIRE is a project by Fondazione Reggio Children, supported by a major partner such as the LEGO Foundation, and stems from a previous research project that was strongly championed by Carla Rinaldi. Among its activities is the Carla Rinaldi Archive, a complex initiative that will take the form of conferences and publications to promote Carla’s cultural legacy. Through this project, we will be working in contexts facing educational and developmental challenges, establishing research communities in Vietnam and Kenya. In these countries, we will work to develop educational policies in collaboration with governments, universities and UNESCO’s Teacher’s Task Force, of which we are a part. This is a great opportunity to continue the path of solidarity through research, as Carla intended.”

Joe Savage, Vice-President of the LEGO Foundation, said: “It is hard to imagine, on this fourth International Day of Play, a more fitting place than this, right here in Reggio Emilia, to launch INSPIRE, a five-year partnership to promote educational, social and policy research and innovation, inspired by the cultural legacy of Carla Rinaldi. This partnership continues a thirty-year bond between LEGO and the city of Reggio Emilia, founded on the belief that creativity, research and participation can improve children’s lives. Today we celebrate the cultural legacy of Carla Rinaldi, who meant so much to us at LEGO and who was awarded the LEGO Prize in 2015.  We are proud to support the creation of the Carla Rinaldi Archive, ensuring that her insights and teachings remain accessible to future generations.”

Carla Bagnoli, coordinator of the Reggio Childhood Studies PhD programme, conveyed greetings from Annamaria Contini, director of Desu Unimore, and shared her own personal memories of Carla Rinaldi: “Those who remain find themselves preserving what remains of those who have passed away. Carla Rinaldi built meaningful relationships; she possessed social grace and entrepreneurial ingenuity. This was her way of living in the present. For Carla, planning meant imagining new possibilities. Shaping a future in which others could recognise themselves, participate and grow. Conducting research as an act of responsibility.”

Amapola Alama, of UNESCO’s International Bureau of Education, spoke on the global state of education in 2026, stating that, despite “significant progress on educational rights worldwide, which has resulted in 1.4 billion students in education, exclusion from education has been rising, particularly in low-income countries, for the past seven years, with 273 million students and young people out of school. There is also a learning crisis, with 617 million students failing to reach minimum standards in reading and mathematics”. She also emphasised the importance of maintaining the international targets for 2030 and international cooperation starting from early childhood.

Harold Göthson, a member of the board of directors of Fondazione Reggio Children, gave a speech on “Carla Rinaldi and democratic citizenship”: “For Carla Rinaldi, education was part of a broader cultural and democratic project,” he said, “based on participation, listening and the recognition of every person’s potential. Her legacy invites us to create environments in which children, young people and adults can continue to be recognised as capable of thought, imagination, relationship-building and active citizenship throughout their lives. A legacy that continues to guide the Foundation’s work in promoting rights, potential and educational opportunities for everyone, from 0 to 99 years of age.”

James Bradburne, ambassador for Fondazione Reggio Children, gave a keynote lecture entitled “Remembering Carlina Rinaldi: a quarter of a century intertwined”, which began with the words: “Carlina was 100 Carlinas. Take five seconds to remember your own Carlina”. The architect and intellectual recalled 25 years of friendship and collaboration with Carla Rinaldi, beginning with his visit to the ‘100 Languages’ exhibition in Vancouver in 1986 and his first meeting with Carla at LEGO in Billund in 2000, which was followed by many further meetings and collaborations, such as the ‘Crossing Boundaries’ conference in 2003. Bradburne emphasised how Carla had been a leading figure in “the voice of Reggio Emilia” and the link between the Reggio Emilia educational approach and the city’s history and development.

The closing remarks were delivered by Marco Massari, Mayor of Reggio Emilia, who also conveyed greetings from Professor Italo Portioli and Simonetta Gola of Emergency. The mayor stated: “INSPIRE is a project that fosters research communities and educational policies between Reggio Emilia, Kenya and Vietnam. And fostering research communities today means having the courage to engage with one another, to exchange knowledge without a sense of superiority, just as shaping policies means taking responsibility for influencing the future of children, parents and educators. On this occasion, I would also like to pay special tribute to Carla Rinaldi, one of the figures who has contributed most to giving continuity and an international dimension to Reggio Emilia’s educational approach. We are living in a time of growing inequality, conflict and social fragility. In this context, investing in early childhood education and lifelong learning opportunities is not merely a pedagogical choice: it is a political choice in the truest sense of the word.”

The two pillars of the project: Research and Educational Innovation

Barbara Donnici, Project Manager for the INSPIRE project, presented the initiative led by the Reggio Children Foundation, chaired by Francesco Profumo, in partnership with the LEGO Foundation, which comprises two interconnected strands that are in constant dialogue with one another.

Global Research and the Carla Rinaldi Archive is the strand dedicated to the pedagogical legacy of Carla Rinaldi and to the promotion of her writings and manuscripts, which were bequeathed to Fondazione Reggio Children and will be catalogued in the new Carla Rinaldi Archive. This archive will form the first intellectual and cultural corpus dedicated to the educationalist, one of the central figures of the Reggio Emilia Approach. Within the same research strand, there is an intensive programme of work exploring two crucial themes for schools and educational organisations: the ethical use of Artificial Intelligence and educational inclusion, analysing the social dynamics that influence public education in contexts of migration.

Through its second strand, Educational Innovation and Communities, INSPIRE aims to link research, development and the implementation of educational policies in collaboration with government institutions, universities and communities, particularly in Kenya and Vietnam – countries specifically selected by the project from among those experiencing crisis or rapid growth. INSPIRE plans to establish two research centres, one per country, in collaboration with local universities to support the creation of Sustainable Educational Research Communities (SERCs) comprising researchers, alongside teachers and educators, parents, as well as administrators at local and national levels. The aim of these communities will be to create, through research and experimentation, the conditions for developing innovative and context-specific educational policies.

An excerpt was also shown from an unpublished video interview with Carla Rinaldi conducted by Sabine Lingenauber and Janina Von Niebelschutz, in which the Reggio Emilia-based educationalist states: “Every community must take care of its children. There can be no society, no civilisation, if we do not take care of children.”

In the afternoon, the research phase of INSPIRE got into full swing with an audience of academics, experts and teachers, featuring presentations by Davide Ruscelli, Coordinator of the International Task Force of Teachers for Education 2030, and Fabiana Lorenzi, Lecturer in Computer Science at Invenio Educação, Brazil. Together with workshop leaders and experts from Fondazione Reggio Children, topics such as quality educational policies, Artificial Intelligence, the Italian language as a sound-based subject, the design of a workshop, hidden childhoods and inclusion in education were explored.

Fondazione Reggio Children joins the Teachers Task Force

It was also announced on this occasion that Fondazione Reggio Children has been admitted to the Teachers Task Force, based at UNESCO headquarters in Paris. Established in 2008, following the agreement set out in the Oslo Declaration, the International Task Force on Teachers for Education 2030, or Teacher Task Force (TTF), is an independent global alliance dedicated exclusively to teachers and education. The aim is to support countries on the issues raised by the 2030 Agenda in SDG 4: “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”. TTF members include national governments, intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations, international agencies, civil society organisations, the private sector and United Nations agencies. The only other Italian organisation involved is INDIRE.

Transformative impact and education policy

The project is not aimed at educational experimentation, but at long-term structural change through the development of policy recommendations. INSPIRE’s objectives include: a greater focus on child-centred policies; the empowerment of teachers and educators as agents of change; new and strengthened ecosystems of solidarity; advanced research and knowledge as a common good; and greater political awareness of education in situations of conflict and crisis. The research findings will be shared with education ministries and local authorities to promote, together with teachers, quality education that is increasingly aligned with children’s rights – a fundamental step towards building democratic citizenship, especially in highly complex contexts, as emphasised by Fondazione Reggio Children’s Charter of Values.

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