Outcomes
The DS-CHANGES project will publish a series of scientific papers and policy briefs. This section will be updated with our latest outputs on carbon farming and data-driven agricultural transition.
Working Paper · 2026
🏆 Best Paper Presented by a Young Researcher · XII AERNA Conference
Steering Carbon Farming Transition: An Agent-Based Exploration of Incentive Mechanisms
Elisa Grugni, Davide Bazzana, Mattia Guerini
This study uses an agent-based model to explore how alternative incentive mechanisms shape the adoption of carbon farming, highlighting key trade-offs between environmental effectiveness, economic sustainability, and food production.
Read the Working PaperAbout DS-CHANGES
The project
The DS-CHANGES project explores the potential of agricultural landscapes for carbon storage and examines the impact of carbon farming practices. Supported by Fondazione Cariplo and enriched with data from the RICA dataset, the project aims to provide robust, data-driven evidence on the determinants of carbon farming practices in Lombardy. It involves creating a unique georeferenced dataset by combining soil and climate data with longitudinal data on Lombardy and Italian farms, using advanced econometric and machine learning techniques to understand the drivers of carbon-farming adoption. The project aims to provide robust, data-driven evidence on the determinants of carbon farming practices in Lombardy.
Newsroom
Latest updates and events
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September 2026
DS-CHANGES Project Meeting
On September 22–23, 2026, the DS-CHANGES team met at the University of Brescia for a two-day project meeting.
The meeting brought the project teams together to discuss the progress of ongoing research activities, share recent developments and results, and coordinate the final phase of the project, including preparations for the DS-CHANGES Final Workshop, scheduled for January 2027. -
September 2026
Best Paper Award @XII AERNA Conference
On September 2-4, 2026, the DS-CHANGES paper “Steering Carbon Farming Transition: An Agent-Based Exploration of Incentive Mechanisms”, by Elisa Grugni, Davide Bazzana and Mattia Guerini, received the Award for the Best Paper Presented by a Young Researcher at the XII AERNA Conference, hosted by Fundación Universitat Jaume I-Empresa.
Developed within the DS-CHANGES project, the paper explores how alternative incentive mechanisms shape farmers’ adoption of carbon farming practices and their environmental, economic and distributional consequences.
Learn more about the AERNA Award → -
June 2026
Session @AIEAA 2026 Conference
On June 10–12, 2026, the DS-CHANGES project organised a session entitled “Carbon Farming and the Adoption of Climate Smart Techniques” at the 15th AIEAA Conference in Rome.
The session brought together contributions focusing on carbon farming, climate-smart agriculture, and the agricultural transition, fostering discussion on ongoing research and emerging methodological approaches in the field. -
June 2026
Climate Adaptation Event @Municipality of Brescia
On June 5, 2026, the DS-CHANGES project was presented during the event “Brescia and Climate Change: Towards New Solutions for Financing Adaptation Works”, organised by the Municipality of Brescia.
The event provided an opportunity for discussion among local authorities, businesses, financial institutions, and researchers on innovative and sustainable approaches to addressing the growing challenges posed by climate change. -
March 2026
Project follow-up meeting
On March 18, 2026, a follow-up meeting of the DS-CHANGES project was held at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (Pisa). During the meeting, project partners reviewed the progress of ongoing activities, discussed preliminary results, and coordinated the next phases of research and dissemination.
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February 2026
Presentations @University of Trento
On February 12–13, 2026, research developed within the DS-CHANGES project was presented at the XIV IAERE Annual Conference, held at the University of Trento.
The Economics of Carbon Farming: An Agent-Based Perspective on the Agricultural Transition (Grugni E.; Bazzana D.; Guerini M.)
The Geography and Drivers of Carbon Farming Adoption in Italy: Evidence from Farm-level Data using Statistical Learning Methods (Castaldo C.; Coronese M.; Lamperti F.)
Carbon Without Borders: Emissions Embedded in Global Trade (Guerini M.; Vezil C.; Vanni F.; Napoletano M.)
The conference provided an opportunity to share preliminary findings and receive feedback from the academic community. -
January 2026
Seminar @Lonato del Garda
On January 15, 2026, developments in the DS-CHANGES project were presented at the seminar “Carbon Farming and Voluntary Carbon Markets”, organised within the 68th Regional Agricultural, Craft and Trade Fair under the patronage of the City of Lonato del Garda.
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December 2025
Workshop @Università degli Studi di Brescia
On December 11, 2025, the DS-CHANGES project was presented during the workshop “Research Dialogues on the Complexity of the Energy Transition” at the University of Brescia.
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October 2025
Workshop @Università di Milano-Bicocca
On October 30, 2025, the DS-CHANGES project was presented during the workshop “Statistica e Data Science per l’Agricoltura e l’Ambiente” at the University of Milano-Bicocca.
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May 2025
Kick-off Meeting
The project officially started with a kick-off meeting hosted at Università degli Studi di Brescia, where partners defined objectives and initial milestones.
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Next updates
Upcoming activities
New workshops, research outputs, and project updates will be shared here in the coming months.
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More
updates
soon
Project Team
Meet the researchers behind DS-CHANGES
Davide Bazzana
Principal Investigator - Università degli Studi di Brescia (UNIBS)
Associate Professor of Economic Policy at UNIBS and collaborator of FEEM. His research focuses on the green transition, environmental economics, and the water-energy-food nexus. He leads the DS-CHANGES project and contributes to several national and EU research initiatives on sustainable resource governance.
Mattia Guerini
Associate Professor - Università degli Studi di Brescia (UNIBS)
Associate Professor at UNIBS and Senior Researcher at FEEM. His work explores macroeconomic and industrial dynamics with a focus on financial markets and innovation. He employs agent-based and econometric modeling approaches and has held positions at OFCE-SciencesPo, Université Côte d’Azur, and the University of Amsterdam.
Elisa Grugni
Research Fellow - Università degli Studi di Brescia (UNIBS)
Research fellow at UNIBS and PhD candidate within the European Joint Doctorate “EPOC”. Her work focuses on agent-based modeling, international economics, and climate change economics. Within DS-CHANGES she develops simulation models for carbon farming policy evaluation.
Francesco Lamperti
Professor of Economics - Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (SSSA)
Professor of Economics at Sant’Anna School and Scientist at RFF-CMCC European Institute on Economics and the Environment. His research centers on climate change economics, technological innovation, and integrated assessment modeling. ERC grantee and author of numerous publications, he serves on several international editorial boards.
Matteo Coronese
Researcher - Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (SSSA)
Tenure-track researcher at the Institute of Economics and L’EMbeDS, Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies. His research combines big-data econometrics and agent-based models to study climate impacts, inequality, and land-use change. His work has appeared in PNAS, JEEM, and other journals.
Cecilia Castaldo
Postdoctoral Researcher - Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (SSSA)
Postdoctoral researcher in applied environmental economics at Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies. Her research combines impact evaluation and microdata analysis to study the economic effects of climate shocks and the design of adaptation and mitigation policies in sectors such as agriculture and tourism.
Cristina El Khoury
Researcher - Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM)
Researcher at FEEM and PhD candidate in Political Science and International Relations at the University of Geneva. Her research focuses on the water-energy-food nexus, sustainable project assessment, and energy poverty. Within DS-CHANGES, she is in charge of dissemination and communication activities.
The DS-CHANGES project is funded by Fondazione Cariplo.
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