Pisa begins the academic year of the Normale opened by the rector Luigi Ambrosio
In Pisa, at the Palazzo della Carovana, the ceremony that kicks off the teaching and research activities 2022/2023 of the Scuola Normale Superiore took place. Many themes were touched upon in his lecture by Professor Luigi Ambrosio, in the fourth year of the Directorate of the University School founded by Napoleon on 18 October 1810: from the research projects that the Normale is carrying out in Tuscany, such as the collaboration with the Stella Maris Foundation for biomedical research to the creation of a support center for digital transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises and organizations, in which the Normale will contribute through its High Performance Computing Center.
Ambrosio also hinted at the need for a programmatic investment plan in research and development that is able to bring the country to the spending levels of other more virtuous nations, recalling how scarce funding and low salaries mean that many Italian PhDs, whose number has greatly decreased over the years, they move abroad, often not for a temporary specialization, but permanently. “Without corrective measures – explained Ambrosio actions on this point – at the end of the PNRR investments in Italy, a step will be created that risks bringing the ratio between public spending for research and development and GDP to the lowest levels of 2009, while it would be necessary remain at least at the level of 0.7% of GDP to enter an order of magnitude comparable to that of other more virtuous countries ».
Speaking of PNRR, Ambrosio mentioned the involvement of the Normale in many national and regional projects, such as the “Tuscany Health Ecosystem”. «It is a significant presence when compared to our size. We will be able to significantly increase both the number of doctoral positions, research staff and infrastructural endowment thanks to this involvement. For this reason, we have launched a three-year plan for the recruitment of very ambitious technical-administrative staff, which goes well beyond the turnover ».
In the meantime, 70 new students and pupils joined the Scuola Normale in September, which remains a reference for many young people, like the shadows who from all regions of Italy participated in the admission competition 2022. The city with the most a high number of applications was found in Rome. More generally, 83% of the students of the ordinary course, preparatory to graduation, about 300 people, come from Tuscany, with the Lombardy region most represented in the student demography. “This significant presence of deserving girls and boys who come from outside the region, even from areas where high-level universities are based, seems to me to be one of the surest indicators of the health of the School, said Ambrosio -. As well as the presence of a considerable part of doctoral students from abroad, 20% of the total, and from advanced nations such as Germany, Canada, Japan ».
The School is preparing to begin this new year also thanks to international recognition at the level of teaching and research, such as the Shanghai Ranking 2022, which places it in tenth place in the world when considering the size / quality ratio. The specificity of the School is also the intertwining of the humanistic and scientific fields, the two souls of the Scuola Normale in Pisa, as evidenced by the Vite dei Marmi exhibition inaugurated today, part of a project to bring back to life ancient precious statues in storage at Villa Corsini a Castle, a Florence.
Among the collaborations mentioned by the Director, the one in which the Scuola Normale is engaged with CONSOB for monitoring the orderly conduct of market negotiations thanks to specific data developed by mathematicians and IT specialists; the one with the Tuscany Region for the concession to the School of an important building in the center of the city of Pisa, a building located in Via Roma, close to the Solferino Bridge, dating back to a beautiful nineteenth century and over a thousand square meters spread over three floors.
Among the somewhat historic initiatives to remember this year, the new Statute of the Scuola Normale, which for the first time includes the word Director, next to that of Director, as well as teacher next to professor, and pupil next to pupil. A sign of discontinuity with the past, a text that the masculine and feminine for the nouns that designate all the various academic components, but not only, and whose principle will be extended to all internal regulations.