The average evaluations of Politecnico are one of the best in Italy. Among the figures released by ANVUR we can see: Architecture in first place and Civil Engineering in second place in the ranking of the universities of big dimensions; Mathematic Sciences in second place in the ranking of university of middle dimensions; Law Sciences (represented by a few researchers but with a great scientific production) in first place and Economic Sciences and Statistics in third place in the ranking of small universities.

These results allowed the university to increase the Ordinary Financial Fund of 2016, and it’s a result that only 20% of public universities reached.

The second element that allowed the increasing in the FFO is the scientific production of the new-employed; in this field, Politecnico is in the first places in the Italian ranking. This shows the prudent and meritocratic recruiting policies of the last years, both for young researchers and for ordinary professors. In the field of Industrial and Information Engineering, Politecnico is in first place for its ability of selection of its staff in the ranking of universities of big dimensions. In the scientific areas we can find Mathematic Sciences, Architecture and Civil Engineering in the first places.

Finally, Politecnico of Turin has been mentioned this morning as “best practice” during the presentation of a report about the figures of Terza Missione (that is Technological Transfer and Public Engagement), and ranked in second place for its patenting activities and for giving value to the intellectual property.

The dean Marco Gilli says: “The results about our university are extremely positive. There are research fields which are already strengthened for what concerns their quality and their competitiveness, but other must be strengthened and supported, in order to have a faster development process. The politics of this university (both the ones of the past and the ones we will put into practice in the future) want to support these strategies and make our results better.”

On February 21^st ANVUR (Italian National Agency for the Evaluation of the University and Research Systems) showed the figures coming from the survey about the quality of research (VQR), carried out considering the data between 2011 and 2014, and the tables representing the evaluation areas and the results of Terza Missione.

In December the results had already been positive for the University of Turin, and now we can see the same: 3^rd place among all the other Universities, with positive results also in educating and recruiting highly qualified professors. In particular, UniTO is at the first place in Italy in Public engagement, it makes the impact of research in the region better and improves the scientific production.

The section dedicated to Terza Missione honours the politics of the University in the region for the development of the territory and the activities of research and teaching. It underlines the importance of the activities that allowed to evaluate the openness of the University of Turin to the socio-economic situation and it measures the many interactions the University has with business, schools and the society, in order to create more and more opportunities of social development.

VQR 2011-2014 compared around 96.000 research products, which are the result coming from professors and researchers in the 16 scientific areas, in order to evaluate 96 universities, 12 research agencies coordinated by the Ministry of Education, MIUR (University and Research) and 26 agencies which decided to take part in this evaluation.

So Gianmaria, Ajani, dean of the University of Turin: “The success of our University comes from the excellent job of our researchers in the universities and the selection of products. We are one of the few university in the North of Italy that still are improving their performance. The evaluation is extremely positive also for the awarding of the FFO (Ordinary Financial Fund), which is higher than in the last year by 8%. The first place of UniTO in Public Engagement honours many years of work of the whole university community, but above all it shows the openness and the recognizing of the key role the university can and must have for the region and the country today”.

The University bets on the courses in English. Now there are six degree courses in English, but next year there will be 10 of them.

The greatest news is that you will be able to become a “doctor” thanks to the English degree course of medicine at the hospital San Luigi – Orbassano. This opportunity will be presented to the students of Capus Luigi Einaudi who attend the 4^th or the 5^th class at high school until Friday 24^th during the “Orientation days”. This year the courses will be presented by professionals, notaries, advocates and social workers that will talk about the job perspectives.

The English language offers more possibilities. Another great piece of news is that until now the only courses in English had been the two-year specialising degrees. In September the first three-year course starts – Business and Management – and also the first five-year course begins – Medicine. The two specialising degrees that will start are European Legal Studies and Business Administration. There will be also an English curriculum of Philosophy. Last year «Stochastics and data Science» started: the number of subscriptions was 35 – not few for a specialising degree.

The consul general of the United States, Philip T. Reeker, on February 17^th visited Politecnico of Turin and SITI (Institute for the Region and Innovation). He also met Bernardino Chiaia, vice-director for internationalisation and Romano Borchiellini, vicedirector for the logistics and president of SITI.   During this meeting the engineer Sergio Olivero introduced the project X-Team.

The consul looked interested in increasing his knowledge of this initiative, promoted by Politecnico of Turin, University of Ca’ Foscari (Venice), IUAV, SITI and CORILA. This initiative wants to educate some experts in saving of the cultural heritage from attacks or natural events and from the illegal trade of art works.

The main objective is the education of experts ins saving the cultural heritage in critical situations caused by wars or natural disasters, through an approach that makes them able to start development processes, whose aim is to create job places for highly qualified people: in this way they will give all those people who are fleeing now the prospect of “coming back home with dignity”.

The people to educate will be chosen among the students and researchers of countries who are in conflict and among the officials of the cultural system. In particular, they will make an effort also to involve refuges, even those on the edge of country which are in crisis: in fact, they are a real “deposit of competences” that could help rebuilding their home countries.

X-Team will also promote the creation of highly specialised local agencies: through this project they will create a coordination unit in Italy and “Satellite Centres” all around Europe, which will collaborate with local partners, spread the know-how and act in loco through chains of innovative services for the safety, the protection and the management of the cultural heritage, with, as a consequence, more job places for qualified people.

Which is the best way to involve the young in speeches about mafia and illegality? Terre di Musica has found an attractive way to let everybody know about this positive event: the confiscation of resources from mafia.

In Via Verdi 9, Turin, in Aula Magna at Cavallerizza, on Februart 20^th 2017 at 4 p.m., there will be a meeting about music, cinema, literature and art, which are the means necessary for the project of cultural requalification of the resources confiscated from mafia.

Main actors at this meeting are the inventor of this project (Salvatore De Siena, founder of the band Il Parto delle Nuvole Pesanti) and a series of spokesmen of the institutions involved in it: Rocco Sciarrone (University of Turin, Cultural Studies, Politics and Society), Alessandro Cobianchi, Arci Nazionale, Maria Josè Fava (LIBERA Piemonte) Piero Ferrante (“Narcomafie”), Marco Maccarone (Cascina Caccia, San Sebastiano Po, Turin).

This meeting is organised by the University of Humanistic Studies, coordinated by Alberto Rizzuti and it is open to anybody. With the sponsorship and the support of the University of Turin and ARCI, Terre di Musica, organised in collaboration with LIBERA, is a trip around Italy, whose best moments are noted in a book and a movie by Zona: here you can find the historical, social and cultural information about these resources and also the experience of the characters.

http://www.unito.it/sites/default/files/terre_di_musica.pdf

On Tuesday 14^th February at 10.45 a.m., the mayor Chiara Appendino and Gianmaria Ajani, dean of the University of Turin, are signing and showing the press a dialogue between the City of Turin and its University about the carrying out and the testing of projects whose objectives is to reorganise projects aiming at reorganise offices and city services.

Valter Cantino, director of the Management University, and Emilio Agagliati, director of the staff of the City of Turin will take part in this meeting with the journalists.

The new edition of the project “Innovation for change” took place at CERN of Geneva on February 1^st. It has been promoted by the Scuola di alta formazione e management of Turin (SAFM – School of high education and management), by Politecnico di Torino and by Ideasquare, a specialised centre that hosts innovation-related events at CERN (Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire).

50 young students at MBA and SAFM and graduate students of Politecnico take part in this project, that is an education course in the scientific/engineering field. In the next months they’re going to work in Geneva and in Turin; they’re divided into different groups, but they’re brought together by the same objective: to use the most advanced technologies in order to help face societal challenges like the question about food and health.

Thanks to the work of the next months we will get 8 new ideas of business; each one of them will be competitive on the market, since they offer innovative products and services invented just to face the societal challenges in the context of the industrial and international needs. The students will be supported by those ones who studied at SAFM and who are entrepreneurs now, or work in big companies or as researchers at CERN or at Politecnico, looking for advanced tools and technological solutions which are ready to be used and creating prototypes ready to be developed on the market.

This project will be also supported by institutions and agencies that showed the students which are the challenges they have to focus on in order to find feasible solutions: the Italian Ministry of Economic Development, the UN development organization, the AIUC (Onlus organization), Casillo Group, ENEL, ENI and Humanitas.

At the end of this project (that will be in June) the students have the opportunity to show the results of their work to companies and investors during a public meeting in Turin, in which the heads of the supporting institutes will take part, too.

The number of Turinese students who want to study all around Europe is higher and higher: there has been a record in the numbers of appliances for the Erasmus project. Barcelona and Berlin are the most attracting destinations; Spain is the most attractive country, but also northern countries and U.K. are very often students destinations, even if with these countries it has been more difficult to establish exchange pacts since before the Brexit.

At Politecnico the Erasmus applications have reached the upper limit of 1800 as usual, while the number applications for the projects outside E.U. has redoubled and amounted to 500-600, also thanks to focused funds. These numbers have increased thanks to the politics of the University, which decided to raise its economic support for people at the lowest income brackets: it redoubled since the last year and is now 600 Euro per month.

Also the number of foreign students in the city has increased: last year 579 and this year 630 students, above all from Spain, have chosen the University of Turin. In regards to this point, the University seat of Via Po has some difficulties: according to the Osservatorio regionale per l’università (Regional Observatory of University) this seat is below the national average of international students it attracts. At the Politecnico the situation is much more better: it may be more attractive thanks to the higher number of courses in English.