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Friday, 16^th March 2018, APEnet, the Italian network of the Universities and Research Institutes for the Public Engagement, has been presented in the “Sala degli affreschi” (Fresco Hall) of the CRUI (the Conference of the Deans of the Italian Universities). The occasion was the Workshop “Destination Public Engagement #2”, which has been organized in cooperation with the ANVUR, the Italian National Agency for the Evaluation of the University and Research Systems.

The network has been developed from a proposal made during the first step of the Workshop, which has been organised by the Università degli Studi di Torino in December 2015 and which involved 100 representatives from 28 Universities and Research Institutes from all over Italy. In February 2017, the university of Turin implemented the proposal, launching the endorsement to APEnet, which now includes 36 universities and 2 research institutes.

Similarly to what happened in other European countries, APEnet has been created in order to support Universities and Research Institutes as long as the sharing and the enhancement of programs, aims and initiatives for the Public Engagement are concerned. The Public Engagement is an internationally recognised new and effective didactic method, based on the sharing of the research results and on the involvement of researchers, industries, policymakers, school students and citizens.

The challenge which the University has to address as a place of knowledge is to ensure that the production of knowledge and innovation becomes an inclusive process shared with the community.

The so-called “Terza Missione” (third mission) is now structured around a strong commitment to social responsibility and to the focusing on the land.

In particular, APEnet aims are:

• contributing to the enhancement and the evaluation of the initiatives of Public Engagement, in cooperation with the different institutional players of the Italian university system (MIUR, CUN, CRUI, ANVUR, etc.)
• sensitising, training and briefing the (research and technical-administrative) staff of the Universities and the Research Institutes
• sharing and promoting national and international experiences
• developing a common and shared platform for promoting, monitoring and evaluating the initiatives of the Public Engagement
• enhancing and developing the presence of the Public Engagement in the university programmes (degree courses and doctorates)
• fostering the research about the themes of the Public Engagement

Here you can find the list of the universities and of the research institutes which are members of APEnet elenco degli Atenei e degli Istituti di Ricerca membri di APEnet.

For further information: Andrea De Bortoli

Università di Torino – Resp. Valorizzazione Della Ricerca e Public Engagement – Agorà Scienza.

Tel. 011 6702738

Email: publicengagement@unito.it

Are you a student far from home and are you searching for a place to live? Have you already got a flat and are you looking for a flat mate?

Roomtastic will do the job!

It is a digital platform which allows the contact between supply and demand of flats for university and transfer students.

Once you have chosen the city in which you are interested, you can place an ad in order to immediately rent a room or a flat or you can see the available offers.

Roomtastic has been created in 2015 by four digital-enthusiast young friends and, in February 2017, it has became a partner of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore.

The purpose of its creators is to reduce more and more the real estate brokerage and allow students throughout Italy to access to a transparent, reliable and totally free research-and-offer service. The portal provides a service which meets the needs of the young people. “We believe that this project will bring benefits to all those students, who, like us, have often had to look through messy ads and leaflets, which were often unclear and which did not include a proper and reliable description of the room they advertised”.

The search and the  publication of the ads, as well as the support services, are free for all the users of Roomtastic.

Moreover, you can receive and consult free of charge up to 5 preventives for your transfer, thanks to the free service provided by Fazland.

The moment of choice is approaching: what to do after high school diploma?

The Città Universitaria service of the Municipality of Turin has decided to create an orientation guide that can be an efficient help in the delicate transition from the world of high schools to the university one.

The guide presents the educational offer in the area of Turin, explains how to access the degree courses and how the Universities are organized. The University services, websites and infromation booths of the City of Turin that deal with orientation are also listed.

The guide wants to be only a first useful tool for orientation: it is a starting point, for then deepen the information on the sites and tahnks to the online guides of the individual bodies, entering more into the merits of the training offer, the procedures and deadlines for enrollment and of all the news concerning the next academic year.

In the boxes To find out more, you will find all the useful references to access more detailed information.

Download the 2018 Orientation Guide pdf here or consult the #Orientati section of the site.

There are 5 research projects of the University of Turin that will be financed with about 6 million euros by the INFRA-P that the Piedmont Region has activated for “the construction, strengthening and expansion of public research infrastructures”, to enhance investments and the creation / enhancement of laboratories open to the use by multiple users (research centers and companies) and to develop relevant applications in industry and in the system of businesses.

Thanks to new fundings, the researchers of the University will be able to enhance their research on Artificial Intelligence, Materials Study, Nanotechnologies, Molecular Imaging for Biomedicine and Biotechnology, Humanities, Social Sciences and Humanities.

“The funding of the Region rewards once again the research of the University of Turin”, declares Dean Gianmaria Ajani “and confirms the recent recognition obtained by the MIUR Departments of Excellence. A research that is at the forefront in sectors of the highest value and competitiveness for local companies. In fact, the University has for some time played a decisive role as an engine for the development of the regional production system and commits its researchers to projects at the service of companies. With the awarding of these new funds, the University will make available to the territory its capabilities for the construction of the new Competence Centers within the IMPRESA 4.0 plan. Thanks to a strong synergy with the Polytechnic, the Piedmont Region, the companies and the other institutions, it will be possible to create infrastructures and services that offer great impact in terms of production for the development and the future of our territory “.

“The production methods of the future need new technologies”, says Vice-Dean Silvio Aime, “based above all on the digitalisation of production processes, new economic models, innovative work organization and new internal and external corporate relations. University and Polytechnic, working together can combine their specific skills to find competitive answers to complex needs of great relevance for the business world and for the development of the country “.

The projects awarded by the competition, all characterized by strong multidisciplinarity and technical-scientific innovation, are:

• HPC4AI – Center of High Performance Computing Competence and Artificial Intelligence Turin

The project wants to build a high performance computing competence center for open and scalable Artificial Intelligence with applications centered in the S3 strategy: health, agri-food, mechatronics, automotive, aerospace. The center is made up of a distributed federation of ODRs that complement the enabling technologies for the operation and sustainability of the center. These include High-Performance Computing (HPC), IoT, Machine Learning, Big Data Analytics.

The infrastructure (IR) of the center, consisting of 4 federated green data centers, will be easily accessible through cloud services. To maximize technology transfer, the center will operate by co-designing applications and technological solutions. The center will offer highly specialized support to foster innovation and develop skills in local companies, thus stimulating the expansion of market opportunities.

Total project cost 4.5 million euros.

Funded 1.5 million University of Turin (Coordinator)

Project realized in collaboration with the Polytechnic of Turin (co-beneficiary)

• SAX – Advanced instruments for complex systems

The SAX project provides for the extension and expansion of services for companies and research bodies of the NIS Interdepartmental Center of UniTO (www.nis.unito.it), in partnership with DISAT of PoliTO (www.disat.polito.it) through the acquisition of multi-accessory FEG-SEM instruments, for digitized RX microtomography and RX diffractometry, to constitute an innovative instrumental pool at regional and national level for the study of materials and systems of interest for the innovation areas of the production system identified by the regional strategy S3.

The realization of the project extends already existing networking perspectives between the Universities of Turin and their Business Incubators, and opens a new one towards a future regional Competence Center.

Total project cost 2.5 million euros

Funded 1.05 million euros University of Turin (Coordinator)

Project realized in collaboration with the Polytechnic of Turin (co-beneficiary)

• PiqueT – Piemonte Quantum Enabling Technology

In the field of enabling technologies (KET), the emerging quantum technologies, evolution of nanotechnologies and photonics, are a strong opportunity for industries to grow and innovate on a wide range of sectors, strategic for the S3 of Piedmont. PiQuET is a technological facility that rationalizes and enhances existing facilities, makes them a common factor in the territory, and acts horizontally on strategic industrial supply chains for competitive growth and productivity. IR operates on synergistic sectors: development of materials, micro / nanostructured devices and sensors, microfotonics and quantum fiber communication, developing innovative systems for the industry and also allowing advanced and safe sensor networks. The OdR share their instruments, complete them with a new and significant investment and place them in a new laboratory with avant-garde plants located at TNE in Turin in Corso Settembrini 178. The IR will be one of a kind in Italy, because it creates a new IR at the state of the art, it creates a critical mass of the skills and tools of the OdR and begins a permanent collaboration between OdR and industry, supporting the industrial take-up, the patents paths and an industrial plan that creates new jobs.

Total project cost 6 million euros

Funded 200,000 euros University of Turin (co-beneficiary)

Project realized in collaboration with the National Institute of Metrological Research Inrim (coordinator) and Polytechnic of Turin (co-beneficiary)

• EuBI-NodoIM-TO – Strengthening of the Italian Euro-BioImaging Node for Molecular Imaging, Turin Office

The Hub for the Medical Imaging of the European Euro-BioImaing Infrastructure (EuBI) will be based at the Institute of Translational Medicine (IMT, P.zza Nizza, Turin). Connected to the Hub, there will be the Italian Node for Molecular Imaging, dedicated to pre-clinical investigations with the different in-vivo imaging modalities, coordinated by the University of Turin. The investment project involves the acquisition of a scanner for Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) operating at 7 Tesla and a PET (SPECT) / CT instrumentation for small animals for the Turin site of the Italian Node of Molecular Imaging (NodoIM-TO). MRI and PET (SPECT) / CT represent the most important imaging techniques in terms of spatial resolution (MRI) and sensitivity (PET). The EuBI Node will use model animals available at the facility of the Molecular Biotechnology Center (MBC-1 and -2).

Total project cost 3 million euros

Funded 1.5 million euros University of Turin

• 0 – Research infrastructure of humanities, social sciences and humanities for the digital transformation of companies and markets

The project meets the challenge of the multidisciplinary integration of research in the HSSH field in favor of the plurality of processes linked to the Fourth Industrial Revolution, identifying an innovative contribution of the operational research of human, social and humanistic sciences.

The investment project involves the construction of a research hub in the Palazzo Nuovo campus, which guarantees the networking of laboratories and technological equipment of the latest generation for human, social and humanistic research relevant to the business system.

The flexibility of the spaces and equipment provided and the plurality of actors involved in the design (9 departments) guarantee a wide and efficient use of IR and a wide range of services to companies, also through joint planning, maximizing results and minimizing risks, both in economic terms and in relation to the results of research and innovation for growth. https://innovazione.unito.it/hssh-with-and-for-industry-4-0

Total project cost 2.87 million euros

Funded 1.44 million euros University of Turin

Learn Today, China Tomorrow

It is called PoliTO ChinaDay (Learn Today, China Tomorrow) and it is the biggest Italian- Chinese event scheduled at the Polytechnic of Turin, tomorrow, 7^th March 2018 at the Sala Consiglio di Facoltà and Aula Magna (at 10 am). The Association CSSA Polito (Association of the students and Chinese students of the Polytechnic of Turin), which is the organizing body, has organized a rich program of initiatives and meetings dedicated to the Chinese culture and the topic of internationalization.

The new Silk Road

The day is part of the “New Silk Road” (Belt and Road Initiative , BRI), a strategic plan of China for improving the links and the cooperation between the countries in Eurasia. The land routes, that cross the Asian continent, and the sea ones, that from Indochina pass through Africa and then reach the Mediterranean, are part of the new Silk Road. The aim of the meeting will be to disseminate and make China better known to Polytechnic students, professors and researchers. The research possibilities and educational offers of Chinese universities will also be presented.

For the Polytechnic of Turin, which ha some relations with the most important Chinese universities, will be the perfect opportunity for sharing and for cultural and academic exchange, the day will also include artistic performances and cultural ceremonies, such as the Tea ceremony.

Schedule of the day

10 am – 10.40 am China, a look at the future. Curated by Pan Zuoke, vice president
of the CSSA association
10.40am – 11pm PoliEtnico Choir Exhibition
11 am – 11.40 am PoliTO in China, challenges and opportunities. Organized by the Area
Internationalization
11.50 am – 12.30 pm Tea ceremony. Organized by the Confucius Institute
12.30 pm – 1 pm Study in China, testimonies and experiences
1 pm – 2 pm LUNCH (Catering offered by CSSA) at the Sala
Consiglio di Facoltà
2 pm – 2.20 pm China, a look at the future. Cured by Pan Zuoke
2.20 pm – 3.20 pm Issue of visas for China. Speech of the Consulate
Chinese in Italy
3.15 pm – 4.05 pm Exhibition of Tai Ji. Organized by the Confucius Institute
Musical performances. Chinese students of the Conservatory
4.10 pm – 4.30 pm Living in China. Speech by the Students Associations
4.30 pm- 5.00 pm Conclusion done by CSSA

Information material will be available at the Hall of the Sala Consiglio di Facoltà
about the most important Chinese universities and on the various mobility opportunities e
collaboration with China.

After the recent acknowledgments obtained by the 23 Departments of the University of Turin as Departments of Excellence from Miur, and from the international ranking THE, that rewards the University for the Clinical and Health, the Arts and Humanities, the Life Sciences and the Physical Sciences, the University of Turin is a world excellence in all 5 broad subject areas even according to the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2018, the ranking that evaluates the performance of Universities in different areas of research.

The University has in fact obtained excellent results (among the first 500 in the world) in all 5 macro categories “broad subject areas”: Humanities, technology and Engineering, Life Science and Medicine, Nature Science and Social and Economic Sciences. In particular, the best result was achieved in Life Science and Medicine, where UniTo ranks 189^th in the world.

The University of Turin excels in 12 of 48 subject areas of  research: Agriculture, Languages, Pharmacy, Law, Medicine, Physics, Sociology, Biology, Chemistry, Economics, Mathematics e Computer Sciences.

The number of universities considered in the ranking list of excellences are only a few hundred (top500) among the 1100 that were in the ranking among the 4000 university in the world evaluated for the ranking.

The methodology used by QS in order to do a ranking combines some bibliometric indexes (quotes for the publoication on scientifics journals and H-index, an international index which measures the impact and productivity od researchers) and the results of some reputational questionnaires given to academicians and employers carried out by QS. These last factors, that usually are only a 10% of the final score, have different importance according to different areas, as for example for some scientific or economic sectors where it is the 30% of the final score.

For more info visit: : https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/by-subject

For more details about universities world rankings visit the web page: http://politichediateneounito.it/it/ranking-internazionali/

The initiative, thought by some professors of the University of Turin aims to contrast the university dispersion through the “rescue” of off course students (studenti fuori corso), in order for them to “get back on track” and finish their academic studies.

E-mails, phone calls and registered mails with acknowledgment of receipt are the new methods with which the University of Turin, starting from the Department of Law, tried to get in touch with more than a thousand off course students. Of these, almost half of them have been found and invited for an individual interview in which tools and services to help them have been presented.

The results were immediately apparent: almost 146 students started to go to class again, and one third of these has done the exams with success.

In particular, for the academic year 2017-2018, the Department of Law has set up some useful options to help off course students that need to take the last exams in order to achieve the university degree in a short period of time:

• Remote lessons (online): a way of teaching that allows to have interactive and personalized lessons, that meet the needs of working students that can’t attend classes at the University.
• Teaching tutor: off course students can ask for the help of a teaching tutor; according to the number of students that take part in the project; UniTo will assess the possibility of having tutors that will have to give ad hoc teaching materials (slides, lecture notes, audio and video recordings, faq, wiki, forum) and weekly self-evaluation exercises.
• Personalized courses: if the exams that you have to take are not present in the list of the education provided for the academic year 2017-2018, there is the possibility to have some personalized courses, even through the acknowledgment of equivalences.

In the energy agenda the technical results are more important as compared to consideretions about important human and social aspects. The European project Shape Energy tries to change this attitude promoting a better integration of social and humanistic sciences in projects about energy and transport financed by Horizon 2020 and others.

In February 2018 the Polytechnic of Turin organized two workshops for the coordinators committed to the innovation through collective projects. The participants of the two events have recognized the the added value generated by the integration of social sciences and humanistic subjects in projects about the energy sector finaced by the EU.

Through different innovative methods for the implementation of these workshops called “sandpit”, including storytelling and live-drawing, participants had the opportunity to formulate concrete ideas to imporve the impacts on society, talk about innovative methods for the interdisciplinary collaboration in the area of projects about the energy and transport sector, share the best procedures with a group of multidisciplinary experts from all Europe in a stimulating context in which it is possible to propose ideas for future projects on energy topics.

“It is necessary to look at energy politics from a financial point of view without forgetting their social, environmental, technical, decision-making aspects. To do so, it is pivotal to establish a dialogue between STEM researchers and SSH researchers” explained Professor Patrizia Lombardi, who is in charge of the project for the Polytechnic of Turin.

Among these key matters, that must absolutely be integrated in the Horizon 2020, there are some problems between qualitative and quantitative results, linguistic differences arising from interdisciplinary projects, energy efficacy and users involvement. In particular this last aspect puts into light how important it is to talk to a wider audience in order to make sure that the social impact of the projects in the energy sector is perfectly clear.

Participants have also underlined the importance of social acceptance, of user’s experience and of market researches, which are pivotal elements for the success of the projects. Their implementation from the early stages of the projects adds an additional level of difficulty, but it also makes it possible to increase the efficacy.

“We have to be open to different models of efficacy in order to show the impact that socio-economic sciences and humanistic subjects have on societies” said Andrea Bonaccorsi, lecturer of the keynot speech, of the University of Pisa, Senior Research Fellow at FBK-IRVAPP of Trento.

More than 100 representatives of institutions attendend the two sandpits. They came from 15 Countries: Blegium, Croatia, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Norway, the Netherlands, Portugal, the United Kingdom, Slovakia, Spain and Hungary.

The participants represented a wide and diverse range of projects financed by Horizon 2020 and by the 7^th PQ: Ambition; BestRES; Bio-HyPP; BIOROBURplus; BRISK2; CEMCAP; CONSEED; E2District; EMPOWERING; enCOMPASS; ENERGISE; ENLARGE; EnPC-INTRANS; ENTRUST; ESA 2.0; FLEXMETER; GEMex; interGRIDy; IRON; ISABEL; LIMPET; MAGIC-NEXUS; Mobility4EU; MOBISTYLE; NATCONSUMERS; PEMs4Nano; PVSITES; RenGen; ShaleXenvironmenT; SHAPE ENERGY; SHAR-Q; START2ACT; STOREandGO; SWInG; THOMSON; UPGRADE; ZERO-PLUS.