Early school leaving is a multi-dimensional and multi-causal phenomenon that requires a broad and multi-disciplinary view in order to be understood and, above all, addressed. Numerous factors contribute to the manifestation of this phenomenon, including socio-economic and family status, parents' level of education and the presence of undiagnosed psychiatric disorders.   
In the research project, early school leaving is understood either as early interruption and definitive abandonment of the school career or as achievement of the school level, but significantly longer than expected.

Starting from a composite context, Intesa Sanpaolo believes that action must be taken on several fronts. Hence, in addition to proposing orientation programmes and helping to improve teaching a by proposing experiential and multidisciplinary formats, it has chosen to activate an applied research project with the Neuroscience Lab of Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center and its scientific partner Scuola IMT Alti Studi Lucca to explore the factors of school drop-out from a neuroscientific point of view.
In particular, the Neuroscience Lab is an Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center initiative that develops applied research projects in the field of neuroscience to  the support of Gruppo Intesa Sanpaolo  and the market.
Scuola IMT Alti Studi Lucca  is a university, research and higher education institution that deals with the study and analysis of economic, social, technological and cultural systems.
For the involvement of schools in the Turin and Lucca areas, support was requested from the Fondazione Links  and the Fondazione per la Scuola  - which play a connecting role between the various actors, both public and private, of the education community.

The research was carried out in the cities of Lucca and Turin, examining two territorial realities that differ in terms of population density, educational institutions, social stratification and presence of cultural identities, making it possible to assess not only the incidence of the various factors but also the possible presence of different indicators directly linked to the nature of the social context.
More than 4000 students from 13 secondary schools in the two cities were involved, belonging to all types of subjects (high schools, technical institutes and vocational institutes), from all age groups (1st to 5th year).

For many years, the European Union's education and training policy has been to reduce the rate of early school leavers. In Europe, the dimension of the phenomenon is the share of 18-24 year olds who have at most a lower secondary qualification and are out of the education and training system (Early Leavers from Education and Training, ELET). This was set by the Europe 2020 Strategy, with a European target set at 10 per cent, now reduced to 9 per cent by 2030.

Early school leaving is a social problem that the European Union has been trying to tackle for more than 20 years in order to reduce it. For the most part, published statistics measure explicit early school leaving the share of 18-24 year olds with a secondary school leaving certificate or equivalent qualification no longer in education. These statistics do not include the measurement of the phenomenon of so-called implicit school drop-outs,  the share of young people who obtain a diploma but do not even remotely reach the expected and/or expected levels of competence at the end of the school cycle.
In 2022, the share of young people aged between 18 and 24 who have left the education and training system without having obtained a diploma or qualification is estimated at 11.5 per cent, i.e. around 465,000 young people, an improvement on the previous year (12.7 per cent). Early school leaving involves more boys (13.6%) than girls (9.1%); regions in the South (15.1%) than those in the Centre (8.2%) and North (9.9%)5
Source: ISTAT, Analysis of statistical by Goal