This paper highlights the commitment of the Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Foundation, an institution operating in Milan since the 1950s, in building citizenship skills and in the quest to become «a European social science house, a meeting and debate place to break apathy and rethink democracy and development models». This objective is achieved through the organization of exhibitions, conferences, activities for schools and the city, which are based on the documentary sources preserved in an important specialist archive on contemporary history, on which activities such as the exhibitions on Che Guevara and the Soviet Revolution, the production of educational kits and the digitization of the sources within the Great Transformation project, the Season Capital review, the Master on Public History, and numerous other initiatives have been based. Moreover, the Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Foundation offers schools a range of activities for school–work alternation projects.

Keywords: citizenship, innovation, documentary archives, digitalization of sources, educational kits, apprenticeship, publishing industry, innovative libraries, public history.