Research for Global Challenges, great turnout at the first Team meeting

The first collegiate meeting between Team Creative Arts, Cultural Heritage, and Digital Humanities officially marks the new phase of development for the Research for Global Challenges project, that in the next few days will continue with the plenary meetings of the other active teams. At the meeting, on Tuesday 7^th March, almost 60 members participated. High participation, therefore the interest shown by researchers and professors is strong.

The meeting opened with a brief description on the Research for Global Challenges project’s state of development, conducted by Achille Giacometti, Vice Provost for Research. The coordinators, Lorenzo Calvelli and Massimo Warglien, then presented an overview and a well-structured proposal for the team’s future activities.

There have been indications of some funding opportunities in the field of international announcements for applications and their relative deadlines, provided by the research facilitator/technologist Elena Grandi and interspersed with ‘flash’ testimonies on some of the members' experiences participating in competitive projects.

This moment of community arrived after the phase of individual interviews, during which the research facilitator was able to interview almost all the members to understand their specific areas of research and areas of expertise.

“A rich and varied panorama has emerged" - explains Elena Grandi - "characterized by the desire to deepen research themes with new stimulus, using new tools and opportunities in a perspective of interaction, and by the existence of numerous and precious initiatives that too often are undertaken in near or total isolation”.

In the eyes of the coordinators, the Team is first and foremost a place of unity, where members can recreate academic dialogue and transmit enthusiasm for their own research to facilitate and stimulate interdisciplinary collaboration, whether internal or external to the University.

“We want the team to act as an antidote to the sense of fatigue and isolation that many scholars feel in the face of research tasks and, in particular, at the complexity of carrying out a project or the difficulty to obtain finances” they specify. “Our objective is that participating in the Team will help members gain time, not lose it”.

The great success of the Team’s launch seems to be reflected in the increase of enrolments as, following the meeting there were 5 more registries. The Team now has 81 members, some of whom have already taken part in the project’s activities.

In the following days there will be plenary meetings of the other four active Teams:

- Public governance, welfare and social innovation: 14 March, 2pm, San Giobbe;
- Science of complex economic, human and natural systems: 15 March, 4pm, Scientific Campus;
- Cross Cultural and Area Studies: 16 March, 2pm, Cosulich Palace;
- Environmental technologies and green economy: 28 March, 3pm, Scientific Campus.