4 Ca' Foscari Departments selected as 'Departments of Excellence'

Four Ca’ Foscari Departments - Department of Economics, Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics, Department of Linguistics and Comparative Cultural Studies and Department of Asian and North African Studies - have been selected as “Departments of Excellence” (Dipartimenti di Eccellenza) by the Italian Ministry of University and Research, which awards the best university Departments in Italy with research funds for a total of 271 million euros each year.

The four Ca’ Foscari Departments will receive a total contribution of about 30 million euros for the next 5 years.

The list of all 180 Departments of excellence in Italy was published on the ANVUR website, the Italian National Agency for the Evaluation of Universities and Research Institutes.

The Department of Excellence award is an innovative funding initiative, aimed at selecting and financing the best 180 Departments of Italian universities every 5 years. These Departments stand out for the quality of their research and their development projects, which the funds will go towards.

Ca’ Foscari Rector Tiziana Lippiello stated  “Ca Foscari has proved once again the excellence of its research, which is capable of successfully dealing with scientific topics related to the great challenges of our times in an interdisciplinary way, thanks to the valuable work of our researchers. These funds, with a contribution from the four Departments, will help us further the impact and international scope of our research projects.”

The research projects selected by the Ministry of University and Research

With the special funds, the Department of Economics will research the issues posed by the vulnerability of transitional economic and social systems (Venice Initiative on Vulnerability Analysis).
The goal is to address the various problems of different transition processes, paying particular attention to any situation of vulnerability that can exacerbate inequalities and have negative effects in multiple areas (economy, environment, health...).

The Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics will study the issues in the interaction between humans and the environment with an interdisciplinary approach, tackling global and local environmental challenges through a dedicated research facility, the Data-centric Environmental Studies Center.
The Center will integrate the skills of environmental engineers and scientists - who work with environmental models, analysis and processes - with those of statisticians, computer engineers and A.I. experts.

The research project of the Department of Linguistic and Comparative Cultural Studies aims at making the Department a centre of excellence for studies on cultural, linguistic and literary adaptation processes, to address the many transformations of the human and social environment.
The synergies between languages, their study and the literary and cultural disciplines make it possible to recognize the standard tools used by linguistic communities to develop adaptation strategies over time and space.

The main goal of the research project launched by the Department of Asian and North African Studies is to make the Department an international centre for advanced studies on the languages and cultures of these geographic areas.
Within the project, researchers will conduct specialised studies on frontier topics related to the societies and cultures of Asia and North Africa, their regional interconnections and their ties with Europe, in order to understand the challenges and opportunities that can come from the current crisis of globalisation.
Central aims of the project will be the consolidation of the Marco Polo Research Centre, the consolidation of research on the religious dimensions of globalisation, and further research on sustainability and social and cultural inclusion.