It is designed as an opportunity to bring culture back where it has been missing for too long. The bet of the Olivetti Prize for cultural accessibility goes through the call launched by the Ministry of Culture within the Olivetti Plan, which will close applications on September 15, a measure that tries to translate into concrete projects the idea that culture should not be a privilege of a few but a citizenship right.
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The call was adopted by a managerial decree of the Central Institute for the Economic Enhancement and Promotion of Cultural Heritage on June 17, in implementation of a ministerial decree of April and the provisions of the 2026 Budget Law. Its declared objective is to counter what the text defines as “cultural drought,” that is, the structural lack of opportunities for access, participation, and enjoyment of culture, while at the same time promoting the regeneration of suburbs, internal areas, and territories marked by social and economic marginalization. The value framework explicitly recalls Olivetti’s thought, for whom culture was a factor of personal dignity and social cohesion, and the principles of the Faro Convention.
The four sections
From here derive the action axes required of the candidate projects: combating cultural drought, strengthening community participation, using new technologies for inclusive access, innovation in creative sectors, sustainability of results over time, and dissemination of replicable good practices. The prize is divided into four sections, each with its own scope of intervention.
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The first concerns museums, cultural heritage, and territory, and brings together projects aimed at redefining the role of museums, archaeological parks, cultural places, conservation institutes, archives, and libraries, understood not as mere containers but as civil and educational presences rooted in the territory, capable of generating urban regeneration, a sense of belonging, and active citizenship. The second is dedicated to cultural activities, therefore festivals, film and theater reviews, live performance events, literary reviews, and continuous reading promotion programs: here the guiding criterion is the systematic removal of physical, sensory, cognitive, economic, and social barriers that prevent participation.
Then comes the part reserved exclusively for companies and public or private societies, where projects of corporate welfare with a strong cultural content are selected, designed to increase the cultural and relational well-being of workers with an impact that also extends to the territory in which the company operates. Closing the chapter within the MiC is reserved for offices, central and peripheral institutes, and cultural places belonging to the ministry for the experimentation of cutting-edge management models in terms of accessibility (given the internal nature of the subjects involved, it does not provide for the allocation of financial resources).
