Culture, Cultural Heritage, Tourism, Architecture, Governance, Education and Training, Cultural development, Economic and social development, Communication, Monitoring and evaluation, Urban Plannning, Infrastructure Engineering
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History

ARS Progetti was established as a consulting firm in 1992, but its roots date back to the beginning of the 70s, when a group of professional consultants focused their attention on people’s cultural specificity as an asset for development. 

• 1973 ▶ This story actually started in 1973, when the founder of ARS Progetti, Daniele Fanciullacci, after three years in Africa as a civil engineer in large infrastructural projects, joined the overseas section of a major Italian engineering firm specialising in infrastructure, Technital S.p.a.

• 1974 ▶ In 1974, a small, exclusive group of professionals of this overseas team, among whom was Daniele, were granted the ability by the shareholders of Technital S.P.A. to start a separate engineering firm within the same group. This was the birth of Technosynesis S.p.a., which Daniele, as an executive, strongly contributed to its growth as an unconventional consulting firm, internationally acknowledged for its approach to development planning and for its expertise on all aspects of the equilibrium between land-water and human beings.

• 1982 ▶ Cultural anthropology was applied to development planning in Africa through original contributions by Guido Cantalamessa, a cultural anthropologist of the Italian school, of which he was a prominent representative along with Testori and others. These contributions were illustrated in a publication titled “Culture and Planning in Africa” issued by Technosynesis after his premature death in 1982. 

• 1986 ▶ In 1986 Fanciullacci and a collegue, P.G. Cannata, with whom the Technisines experience had been shared, resigned and set up an independent firm, which took the name Envsystems s.r.l. to articulate their interest in environmental problems. They worked together for other 6 years within this firm, consulting on and completing a number of environmental projects in Italy and abroad.  In 1992, after 20 years of professional partnership, they decided to pursue different personal development paths, and thus under Fanciullacci's guidance, part of Envsystems evolved into a new firm, ARS Progetti. 

• 1980s ▶ The early years of ARS Progetti were heavily filled with assignments in the environmental sector, water resources management and natural resource conservation, mostly within the framework of international cooperation. A “systems approach” was developed and emphasized through these experiences, whereby the system includes the socio-cultural environment, the physical and natural environment and the economic environment. Throughout these years, the interest in the human dimension of development and in particular the attention paid to cultural specificity of the populations concerned continued, and the firm found itself progressively more and more involved in the elaboration of new approaches to cultural cooperation and to conservation of cultural heritage. 

• 1990s ▶ The firm grew progressively during the 90s and further expanded its expertise to subjects including public governance, public administration reform, decentralisation of administration, human rights, civil society strengthening and local development.  

• 1999 ▶ Notably, in 1999 ARS Progetti won the role of leading firm as European Framework Contractor of two tenders covering “Culture and Information” and “Human Rights, Democratization and Institutional Strengthening.”  Since then the firm has remained a major framework contractor for the European Commission (EC), implementing several hundreds of assignments all over the world in various areas of expertise. Today, ARS Progetti is qualified as Framework Contractors for the European Commission and the European Investments Banks on the followings:

• 2000s ▶ Throughout the new century, the firm progressively developed its architectural and engineering department, first in the area of heritage conservation architecture, then in the areas of modern architecture, town planning and infrastructure engineering. 
  Its organisation and staffing progressively expanded and were structured to cover the increased volume in business and new branches and offices were opened abroad.  

• 2006 ▶ In 2006, a Central and Southern America branch opened in Guatemala, as well as a fully staffed office in Brussels.

• 2011 ▶ In 2011, a branch office opened in the Iraqi Kurdistan.

• 2017 ▶ Finally, a new Branch was opened and registered in Abu Dhabi, UAE, in 2017 after six year of assignement there.