the trentino experience towards the european research area in the knowledge society

ITC-Irst, October 6, 2003

The Trentino Experience Towards the European Research Area in the Knowledge Society

Fausto GiunchigliaUniversity of Trento

Building the future in an enlarged and more integrated Europe – The Trentino foresight exercise as a contribution to the European research area.


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, …)

Strategy – A new strategy (!)


• 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)

Strategy -- Guidelines (1 out of 3)

Excellence and international dimension


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


The core business


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


The geographic dimension


Where are we?


• 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

Trentino

Where are we?


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

Where are we?

Europe


Europe

ERASMUS student mobility- outgoing

0

50

100

150

200

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300

350

1988

-89

1989

-90

1990

-91

1991

-92

1992

-93

1993

-94

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-95

1995

-96

1996

-97

1997

-98

1998

-99

1999

-00

2000

-01

2001

-02

2002

-03

Nu

mb

er o

f st

ud

ents

ERASMUS student mobility - incoming

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

1988

-89

1989

-90

1990

-91

1991

-92

1992

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-03

Nu

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ents


Double Degrees: Ongoing projects

Economics Engineering

Humanities Law Natural Sciences

Sociology

Universität Bremen (D)

TU Bergakademie Freiberg (D)

Technische Universität Dresden (D)

Hamburger Universität für Wirtschaft und Politik (D)

Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen (Physics and Mathematics) (D)



Leopold-Franzens- Universität Innsbruck (A)

KU Eichstätt-Ingolstadt (D)

TU BergakademieFreiberg (D)

Universidad de Granada (E)

Universidad Autonomade Madrid (E)

Université LouisPasteur Strasbourg (F)

Europe


3 4 36

912

2

12

4

17

8

19

12

20

0

4

8

12

16

20

1997-1998 1998-1999 1999-2000 2000-2001 2001-2002 2002-2003 2003-2004

Studenti in entrata Studenti italiani in uscita

Num

ero

stud

enti

Double degrees: student mobility

Europe


5044

7181

54

97

8275

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

1995-1997 1996-1998 1997-2000 1999-2001 2000-2002 2001-2003 2002-2004 2003-2005

Num

ero

stud

enti

Leonardo da Vinci: Mobility (only outgoing)

Europe


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

Where are we?

The US, Canada, ... world


41% 18%

6%29%

6%

Europe South America North America Asia Africa

World

Geography of bilateral agreements


World

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

in entrata in uscita in entrata in uscita in entrata in uscita

American University University of California Università a colori

2001-2002 2002-2003 2003-2004

Num

ber

of s

tude

nts


A New Initiative: Information and communication Technology

(from around 1999)


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)

Trentino – Build critical mass


• 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)

Trentino – build the system


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


43

96

16

494

38

19

26

18

11

17 39

16

35

19

67

0

20

40

60

80

100

domandepervenuti

vincitori domandepervenuti

vincitori domandepervenuti

vincitori

Italia Est Europa Asia Altro

17 ciclo 18 ciclo 19 ciclo

Num

ero

stud

enti

PhD at DIT

ICT (from approx. 1999)


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)


0

500

1000

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2000

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3000

3500

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 91

01

11

21

31

41

51

61

71

81

92

02

12

22

32

42

52

62

72

82

93

03

13

23

33

43

53

63

73

83

94

04

14

2O

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NO

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MB

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01

GE

N-3

1

Giorno di Immatricolazione

Nu

me

ro Im

ma

tric

ola

ti

2000/2001 2001/2002 2002/2003 2003/2004

First year undergraduate students

Where are we?


Provenienze: distribuzione percentuale studenti trentini e non a/a 2002/2003

57.8%

42.2%

% tn su totale % non trentini


46.1%

53.9%


Provenienze: Distribuzione percentuale studenti esteri e non A/A 2002/2003

98.4%

1.6%

% esteri su totale % italiani


97.2%

2.8%

% estero su totale % italiani


42,2%

57,8%



97.2%

2.8%

% estero su totale % italiani


98.4%

1.6%

% esteri su totale % italiani


46.1%

53.9%


Where are we – first year undergraduate?

the trentino experience towards the european research area in the knowledge society

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