Training, university and research were the main topics of the three Euregio Presidents held in Innsbruck on 17 June, in the framework of the Media Festival and in view of the upcoming Alpbach Forum.
The fruitful cooperation among the universities of Trento, Bolzano and Innsbruck is the “oldest” in Europe, as underlined by the Rector Daria de Pretis. The announcement of two new financial sources - one for joint research projects (1 million euro) and one to support students’ mobility among the three universities (100,000 euro) - further strengthens their connections.
The President of Land Tirol, Platter underlined that “These initiatives constitute a concrete support to the most brilliant researchers of these three areas, above all young researchers. We also debated on the Alpbach Forum. This year the results of the Euregio Lab shall be presented. The Europe of Regions requires an increasing level of cooperation”.
The President of South-Tyrol Kompatscher declared that “The meeting was important. It gave us the opportunity to set up concrete cooperation opportunities. The involved universities are all enthousiastic about this truly European approach”.
The Trentino President Rossi highlighted that citizens will feel closer to the research activities. “I sympathize with citizens. I understand that they perceive that the construction of Euregio is a slow process. History is full of very fast and destructive processes. We are now experiencing the contrary: a slow reconstruction process, involving cultural, identity and geo-political issues. We need to transfer our populations, this is a great occasion for everyone, and it will benefit also the competitiveness of the three regions. The regions are planning a different constitutional structure, for the future. Euregio shall further strengthen the protection policies to defend our autonomy. The most important beneficiaries are our young generations. Trentino experiences a deep linguistic gap. We have to overcome this problem. Our productive systems have not been able to overcome this barrier yet. We need to plan new management tools to seize this shared challenge”.
The Rector, Daria de Pretis expressed “my gratitude for this further step towards the construction of a new shared house, and towards a new, larger, European dimension, which requires the support of the EU institutions. Euregio is perceived as a “domestic issue” but it is a transnational scenario. It allows these three regions to be stronger, have more suitable dimension capable to lobby and compete at international level, also in the increasingly competitive research sector. The three universities are marked by an international oriented approach: Innsbruck due to its Mitteleuropean trandition, Bolzano for its trilingual training and Trento, which is marked by a strong internationalization policy. We will obtain even better results if we pool our forces”.