The University of Trento took over the presidency of the Alps-Adriatic Rectors’ Conference for the 2019-2020 term, a community of 36 universities from the regions between the Danube and the Balkans, from the Alps to the Adriatic Sea.
These regions have a lot in common: history, culture, languages, religion, trade, economic relationships and traditions. And, thanks to the Alps-Adriatic Conference, their institutions have been together for thirty years through collaboration in research and education, pursuing the ideal of “a people’s Europe” which has always inspired the Conference, counting more on multilateral relations among European regions (and their universities) than on political relations.
This ideal and its message are particularly important in border areas, in Trentino Alto Adige for example and in the other regions of the Alps-Adriatic Conference members, all the more on the eve of the European elections.
The appointment of the University of Trento to chair the conference was formalized on 4 May in a ceremony that took place at Palazzo Sardagna with the academic representatives of the member universities and of local bodies.
With the University of Trento holding the presidency for the current two-year term, rector Paolo Collini becomes president of the Rector's conference and professor Maurizio Manzin becomes president of the scientific committee of the Alps-Adriatic University.
The University of Trento, which has been a member of the conference since 1984, already held the presidency in 2004-2005.
The Alps-Adriatic Rectors’ Conference, established in 1979, is an independent organization that has nothing to do with the Alps-Adriatic Working Group, which was founded a few years earlier.
As a network of universities, it shares with the Working community the transnational and friendship ideals of central European peoples, but is fully responsible for its work based on decisions taken by the rectors of member universities.
The scientific committee of the Alps-Adriatic University meets twice a year and is made up of one member for each represented region, while the Conference includes the rectors of all the member universities, who meet every year in a different country. Both the scientific committee and the conference held their meetings in Trento to discuss various projects of research, teaching and third mission.
The Conference works in the area of research, teaching, technological applications and science dissemination. To carry out its mission, it relies on collaboration and supports different activities, like the dissemination of information on the member universities, scholarships for undergraduate and graduate students, faculty mobility programmes, conferences and seminars, a common web area. Among the Conference's objectives are the implementation of collaboration projects and the development of long term regional, national and European projects.
The most recent initiative was the organization of subject-specific conferences for the doctoral students of the member universities (Maribor 2016, Trieste 2017, Klagenfurt 2018). Exchanges at the moment are more intense in the areas of history, languages and literature, technology and life sciences.
The press release (PDF | 96.6 KB) includes statements from professor Maurizio Manzin, president of the scientific committee of the Alps-Adriatic University.