Co-Visioning Valsesia: Towards an Implementable Territorial Roadmap for Agri-food Short Supply Chains

Inner mountain areas are increasingly affected by socio-economic decline, requiring integrated and place-based strategies to enhance local development. Within this context, the paper investigates how collaborative processes and data-driven approaches can be combined to support the definition of an implementable territorial roadmap, focusing on the Valsesia Inner Area in Italy. The study adopts a co-visioning framework developed within the Branding4Resilience (B4R) project, integrating collaborative processes and AI-supported analytical tools. In particular, AI-based text and data mining techniques were applied to analyse past funded projects and structure qualitative inputs into strategic knowledge. The combined approach enabled the identification of key strategic axes, development areas, and suggested actions for the agri-food sector. It revealed recurring intervention patterns, funding gaps, and the central role of short supply chains in enhancing territorial resilience. The integration of collaborative insights and analytical evidence led to the formulation of a Shared Territorial Vision “Valsesia: Land of Short Supply Chains”, positioning the agri-food system as a driver of repopulation and local revitalisation. This approach supports the development of preliminary place-based project concepts, strengthens collaboration between academia and local actors in more informed decision-making processes, and provides a replicable framework for the development of implementable Territorial Roadmaps in fragile inner areas.