Introduction - A multidisciplinary approach to embrace complexity and sustainability

Megaprojects – i.e. Large Engineering Project and Large Events worthing more than 100M€/$ and impacting on a large number of stakeholders (>1M peo- ple) – are topics boosting public debate globally. In the academic sector, Mega- projects have become, in the last 20 years, a widespread and articulated field of specialized studies. All over the world, Megaprojects face similar problems and criticalities, inde- pendently from local culture and environment. In the last two decades, academic research on megaprojects has been developed and lot of attention has been given to single-sector studies such as engineering and management. Today the topic is still far to be understood by stakeholders outside the academ- ic sector. Complex phenomena behind Megaprojects need to be faced from differ- ent perspectives and point of view, using an a hermeneutic approach. The need to go further and to open up the gaze towards disciplines such as economics, jurispru- dence, sociology, political sciences is confirmed. Moreover, the emerging topic of sustainability can’t be avoided any longer, but it has become of critical importance for any human endeavour. The Megaproject Research Interdisciplinary Team (MeRIT) – established in 2018 with the intention of combining the multiple aspects related to the design and implementation of megaprojects – aims to promote the debate around Megaprojects among all categories of stakeholders involved in a megaproject’ supply chain, in order to increase the awareness of complex phenomena in charge of criticalities and common problems they face all over the world, and looking for improvement of performances on the whole life cycle (including the selection, design, construc- tion, operation and decommissioning). The Mission of MeRIT is: - the promotion of the academic research involving a wide range of research fields, such as engineering, architecture, management, economics, sociology, laws, political sciences etc.; - being the reference point for stakeholders'debate; - spreading awareness about megaprojects implementation toward public opin- ion; - transferring the findings from the academic research and from the stakeholders debate to operators on the filed. The workshop “A multidisciplinary approach to embrace complexity and sus- tainability” – designed and created in collaboration between Università Cattolica and Politecnico – is the first public step of MeRIT, aiming to bring together experts with different backgrounds and perspectives to open a debate and a multidiscipli- nary discussion on the topic.