Valeria Saiu, PhD in Civil Engineering, Graduate in Engineering and in Architecture (UniCa, Cagliari), with a Master's degree in Landscape Architecture (UPC, Barcelona), carries out teaching and research activities at the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering and Architecture (DICAAR) of the University of Cagliari.

Since 2004, she has been involved in studies, research projects, and consulting activities related to the development of approaches and tools for analysis, assessment, and guideline definition for planning, urban design, and sustainable regeneration of territories and cities. Her attention has always been focused on the definition of multi-criteria, quantitative-qualitative evaluation models, which are useful for structuring informed decision-making processes regarding the multiple impacts of different choices and for defining alternative intervention scenarios.

Her background, which has seen her work at various scales - from individual buildings to large territorial areas - with a strong integration between estimation and urban planning disciplines, has allowed her to develop sensitivity and treatment capabilities for evaluative questions that characterize practices and processes of urban and territorial transformation governance within complex scenarios characterized by various conflict situations. In this framework, her most recent and main area of scientific interest concerns the construction of methods and evaluation tools for the sustainability of urban areas, with particular reference to the territorialization of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda, in relation to their articulations in national, regional, and local strategies.

She is the author of several papers on these topics. In particular, she is the author of two monographs, editor of four books and four special issues of scientific journals, and author of about seventy publications including articles in journals, contributions in volumes, and conference proceedings. Among the most recent articles: Saiu V., Blecic I., Meloni I. (2022), Making sustainability development goals (SDGs) operational at suburban level: Potentials and limitations of neighbourhood sustainability assessment tools (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eiar.2022.106845) and Saiu V., Blecic I., Cocco G., Meloni I. (2022), Urban Sustainability and SDGs Implementation between Regional Strategy and Local Practice: Case of Sardinia (https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91261-1_64-1).

Her research activities are complemented by her commitment to teaching within courses, national and international design workshops, and undergraduate thesis laboratories, where she has served as a co-advisor for over 50 theses. Among the ongoing teaching activities for the ICAR/22 sector, she is a lecturer in the integrated course on Digitalization, BIM, and Construction Management within the Bachelor's Degree in "Tecniche per l’Edilizia e il Territorio” (Techniques for Building and Territory". Furthermore, for the past three years, she has been the professor of a doctoral course on sustainability assessment in engineering and architecture research, included in the educational offer of the "PhD in Civil and Architectural Engineering" of the University of Cagliari (See the 2022-2023 edition: https://dottorati.unica.it/dotticar/gli-sdgs-come-supporto-al-processo-decisionale/).

Many of her activities are focused on doctoral programs: she has organized several scientific and cultural initiatives, including the “PhDays” (December 15-16, 2016: https://dottorato.it/sites/default/files/phdays_programma.pdf), the conference "Research is Democracy: The Role of Scientific Research in Building a Fair and Sustainable Future" (Cagliari, December 6-7, 2018: https://www.unica.it/unica/protected/111093/0/def/ref/NTZ110990/), and the UPhD Green conference dedicated to doctoral research addressing sustainability topics, which has been held annually since 2017 as part of the Urbanpromo event (2022 edition: https://urbanpromo.it/2022/eventi/uphd-green-collaborative-sustainability/).

Furthermore, she is a member of recognized organizations and working groups that conduct studies and research and promote the dissemination of sustainability topics: she is an ordinary member of SIEV - Italian Society of Appraisal and Evaluation, member of the Working Group of RUS - Network of Universities for Sustainable Development, and a member of the Group "SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities" of ASviS - Italian Alliance for Sustainable Development. Moreover, she represents Sardinia in Urbit (INU).

- Last update: January 2023 -