European Programmes and Networks office University of Trento

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The Trentino Experience Towards the European
Research Area in the Knowledge Society
Fausto Giunchiglia University of Trento
Building the future in an enlarged and more
integrated Europe The Trentino foresight
exercise as a contribution to the European
research area.
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Strategy
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Strategy A new strategy (!)

• Be a relevant player (!)
• Two keywords
• Excellence
• International dimension
• However To be structural, excellence and
  international dimension must (!) be a property of
  the system as a whole (university, research
  centers, secondary school, local government,
  industry, )

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Strategy -- Guidelines (1 out of 3)
Excellence and international dimension

• Excellence within the International arena (for a
  small University, only alternative to a local
  teaching University)
• Need of critical mass excellence possible only
  within a (carefully selected) limited number of
  areas
• Building excellence incrementally as a starting
  point of a long term process (change dominating
  culture -- key mechanism hire top researchers
  need right mix of seniors and juniors)

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Strategy -- Guidelines (2 out of 3)
The core business

• Universities have three (!) areas of core
  business
• Teaching (bachelor level Laurea triennale)
• Research (including also Masters level laurea
  Specialistica and Masters, Doctorate level,
  Postdoc.)
• Teaming up with society (technology transfer,
  brain transfer, startups, joint investments, )
• For each of them, implement a different strategy

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Strategy -- Guidelines (3 out of 3)
The geographic dimension

• Five geographic areas
• Trentino (and surrounding regions) Our
  reference system. Need excellence and
  internationality as structural properties
• Europe (Italy as part of Europe) The arena
  where we play
• US, Canada, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, .
  Our colleagues/ competitors
• East Europe -- Our future
• Rest of the world (India, China, Vietnam, Corea,
  ) The enlarged arena

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Where are we?
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Where are we?
Trentino

• Teaching tighter and tighter collaborations with
  local entities (Internships, Apprenticeships, new
  degrees of local interest, ), Trento School of
  Management,
• Research and Technology Transfer Joint projects
  among University, (local) research institutes,
  and (local) companies (regional Law 3, regional
  Law 6), Agenzia per lo Sviluppo (Agency for the
  Development of Trentino)
• still a long way to go. We have just started

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Where are we?
Europe

• Erasmus program
• Double degrees
• Leonardo Program
• Partecipation to Sixth Framework
• Masters and Doctorates in English
• The Italian German University

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Europe
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Europe
Double Degrees Ongoing projects
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Europe
Double degrees student mobility
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Europe
Leonardo da Vinci Mobility (only outgoing)
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Where are we?
The US, Canada, ... world

• Bilateral agreements
• American University
• University of California
• Fullbright program
• Multicultural University

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World
Geography of bilateral agreements
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World
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A New Initiative Information and communication
Technology (from around 1999)
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Trentino Build critical mass

• Set of top international research institutes
• University of Trento (Computer Science,
  Telecommunications and Computer Networks,
  Micro-Electronics, Net Economy)
• ITC-Irst (Artificial Intelligence, User Oriented
  Informatics, Micro-Electronics, Materials
  Science)
• GraphiTech (Computer Graphics and related areas)
  -- Joint venture of Ini-Graphics foundation
  (Fraunhofer IGD Darmstadt), UniTN, ITC-Irst
• CreateNet (Telecommunications and Security)
  Joint Venture of UniTN, ITC-Irst, Technion Haifa,
  Politecnico di Torino, CNR Pisa, TU Berlin, TU
  BudaPest
• Centro Ricerche FIAT (CRF) (Mobility and related
  areas)
• CNR Laboratory for applied Ontology (Knowledge
  engineering, knowledge management, knowledge
  representation, )
• The BIT School (Bolzano Innsbruck Trento)

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Trentino build the system

• Bachelor in Italian most (all) students are
  local
• Within Bachelor Internship mandatory,
  possibility of joining apprenticeship program
• Doctorate as the focal point of the Trentino
  research system 30-40 students per year from ALL
  research institutions (100-150 doctorate students
  at any time). Doctorate as one of the main
  sources of innovation (we hope)
• Joint projects among research centers (FIRB, Law
  3 projects, EEC projects when possible)
• Joint projects with local companies (Law 6
  projects)

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International dimension

• All our research centers have an international
  dimension
• Lauree specialistiche (masters) and doctorate in
  English
• Doctorate program focus on students from East
  Europe and (second priority) Asia (India, Cina,
  Vietnam)
• During 02-03, 16 out of 40 doctorate courses
  were from foreign professors
• Post- doctoral students mainly from West Europe/
  US/ Canada (mainly, but not only, using Law 3
  post-doctoral program)
• In the last two years 12 UniTN Faculty in ICT (2
  part time) from abroad have been offered
  positions (5 are non-Italians)
• The Indo Italian research center
• The ITC-Irst center at Haifa
• and many of usual 6th framework research
  projects
• NOTE PostDocs are the key for the creation of
  the European Research Area

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ICT (from approx. 1999)
PhD at DIT
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Conclusion

• Excellence in selected areas and Internationality
  are our main focus
• Our effort is relatively recent and we still
  have a long way to go
• Our next focus of interest
• Build stronger connections with industry
• Increase dimension of international faculty
  (using also, but not only, Rientro dei Cervelli
  and Marie Curie programs)
• Increase international network (strong interest
  on Erasmus Mundus program)

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Where are we?
First year undergraduate students
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Where are we first year undergraduate?