At the XIII UNESCO Creative Cities Network Meeting in Fabriano, the Politecnico di Torino took part in the panel Introducing Torino, presenting the city’s role as a UNESCO Creative City of Design. During the event, Francesco Carota (DAD) delivered a talk positioning the university as an active laboratory embedded within the city—an institution that not only produces knowledge but operates as a platform for experimentation, collaboration, and urban transformation. His contribution emphasized how academic research and design practices can directly engage with and support the cultural, institutional, and economic ecosystems of the host city. Through this lens, he presented international experiences developed in China, including the curation of the Italian Pavilion at Shenzhen Design Week (2018) and the Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism and Architecture (2019), highlighting how universities can act as mediators of transnational exchange while strengthening local and global urban networks.