Ca’ Foscari University of Venice reaffirms its appeal to young research talents by securing European funding for 18 Marie Skłodowska-Curie projects, amounting to €5.5 million. This achievement positions the university among the top 10 institutions in Europe for the number of awarded fellowships.
The selected research projects will be developed by scholars of nine different nationalities, mainly coming from international research institutions. They will conduct their two- or three-year research projects in collaboration with Ca’ Foscari and other universities or research centres in the United States, Switzerland, Jordan, and Thailand.
The chosen projects encompass a diverse array of subjects, including conflicts in the Middle East, artificial intelligence, Aristotle, migration and care work, drug trafficking, as well as interdisciplinary studies in literature, culture, and religion.
Named after the first female Nobel laureate, the Marie Skłodowska-Curie programme of the European Commission selects and funds the most promising research talents each year, offering them the opportunity to pursue their own scientific projects while moving between institutions and countries.
This edition of the prestigious European grant was particularly competitive: 1,696 projects were funded from 10,360 applications (almost a 30% increase compared to the previous round), with a total investment of €417 million. The fellowships are divided into two categories:
- Global Fellowships (at least one year of research abroad, followed by one year at Ca’ Foscari)
European Fellowships (two years of research at Ca’ Foscari)
Thanks to Ca’ Foscari’s strong focus on securing competitive international funding, the Marie Skłodowska-Curie research community at the university has grown to 211 fellows. Furthermore, Ca’ Foscari has been a pioneer in Italy in providing career opportunities for Marie Curie fellows. Among the applicants, 28 researchers received the prestigious "Seal of Excellence" (indicating an excellent evaluation but no direct funding). These researchers may have the chance to secure funding through the PNRR initiative "Young Researchers", a path already successfully taken by former Ca’ Foscari scholars.
Global Fellowship Recipients
Leonardo Bevilacqua (currently in Germany) will conduct two years of research at the University of California, Berkeley, before concluding his work in Venice. His project seeks to explore the cultural history of how the American concept of "underclass" was transferred to various European contexts in the two decades following the Maastricht Treaty.
Sofia Cavalcanti, (two years at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), will investigate aquatic imagery in contemporary archipelagic literature by Anglophone female writers.
Francesco Davoli, (two years at the University of Lausanne), will examine the legacy of Virgil’s "Georgics" in Italy from the 15th to the 19th centuries, focusing on its influence on agricultural and livestock practices through an analysis of translations of the poem and agronomic treatises.
Lilian Diniz, an Italo-Brazilian researcher heading to Northern Illinois University (USA), will investigate religious conversion and apostasy in early medieval Iberia, examining how religious communities’ perceptions of the "crime" of apostasy can provide insights into the stability and coherence of apostates' religious identities.
Dumitru Razvan (Romanian, two years at Cornell University) will explore culture in early modern Europe. By examining textiles as intricate mediums for the transmission of knowledge in predominantly illiterate societies, he seeks to demonstrate how items such as scarves, ribbons, and embroidered garments influenced local and regional identities while facilitating cultural exchange.
Enna Antea (from the Institut Français du Proche-Orient in Beirut) will split her time between the University of Essex, the University of Jordan, and the American University of Beirut before returning to Ca’ Foscari. Her project seeks to provide a broader understanding of conflict dynamics in Jordan and Lebanon.
Susann Kassem (German-Lebanese, from the University of Oxford) will conduct research at the Graduate Institute in Geneva. Through her fieldwork in Lebanon, she will investigate borders as intricate social processes that encompass perceptions, practices, identities, and the viewpoints of border communities.
Chiara Lovotti will spend two years at Harvard University’s Kennedy School in Boston. Her research will analyse Russia’s intervention in recent conflicts in the Middle East and Africa, examining interactions with local political contexts and addressing the question: Why do local leaders choose the "Russian model"?
Amalia Rossi will split her research between Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand (one year), and Ca’ Foscari (two years). She will concentrate on Thai Buddhist landscapes, examining the interplay between artistic and religious notions of materiality and the effects of green transformations in the industrial and infrastructure sectors, particularly in urban waste management.
Francesca Rotolo will collaborate with the University of Zurich, using music as a case study to analyse the concept of "systemic risk", recently introduced in the AI Act, and assess whether it can encompass the impacts of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) on fundamental rights linked to cultural pluralism.
Vito Ruggiero (spending two years at the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Pittsburgh) will investigate the global dynamics linking drug trafficking and political power, focusing on Bolivia between 1971 and 1982.
European Fellowship Recipients
Alexandra Deem (American, from Freie Universität Berlin) will explore the convergence between generative AI, brand culture, and authenticity on social media, particularly focusing on the phenomenon of "AI influencers."
Giulio Di Basilio (currently at Goethe University Frankfurt) will study Aristotle’s concept of virtue of character, analysing the Eudemian Ethics and its shared books with the Nicomachean Ethics.
Sampath Wasana Handapangoda (Sri Lankan, from the University of Vienna) will research male and female migrant domestic and care workers (PMDCWs), focusing on working-class and minority communities of colour who remain "invisible" in the countries where they live and work.
Ramón Macho (Spanish) will conduct research at the New Institute Centre for Environmental Humanities at Ca’ Foscari. His project aims to develop a pluralistic philosophical concept of nature that incorporates diverse cosmologies documented by anthropologists around the globe.
Ambuj Mehrish (Indian, from Singapore University of Technology) will collaborate with the Neuro-X Institute at EPFL and the University of Geneva to integrate cognitive neuroscience with advanced AI methodologies.
Céline Murphy (French-Irish, from the Institute for Aegean Prehistory in Crete) will examine Minoan mountaintop sanctuaries (c. 1900–1450 BCE) and their role in the development of religious ceremonies and iconographic programmes later used in major lowland centres (the so-called "palaces").
The final project will analyse the transnational dynamics of opposition to authoritarian regimes in ethnically and religiously divided societies, with a particular focus on how Lebanese and Iraqi diaspora groups challenge their home-country regimes.
With these 18 prestigious fellowships, Ca’ Foscari strengthens its position as a European leader in high-impact, interdisciplinary research, fostering collaborations across five continents and advancing knowledge in fields ranging from humanities and AI to political science and environmental studies.
