Visit of the Italian Parliamentary Delegation to the Galileo Galilei Italian Institute
On October 31, 2018, a Delegation of Members of the Italian Parliament led by the President for the Foreign Affairs Commission, Vito Petrocelli, visited the offices of the Galileo Galilei Italian Institute (GGII) inside the campus of Chongqing University. In the first part of the meeting, Anna Facchinetti and Alessandro Zadro, respectively Executive Director and Program Manager of GGII, conducted a presentation to illustrate the ten-year presence of the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies in Chongqing, the work of the GGII and the increasingly profitable scientific and technological cooperation that links Italy to the Chinese megalopolis.
The presentation continued with the description of the ‘Sino-Italian Innovation Base-Camp’ (SIIB-C) project, born in 2017 thanks to an agreement signed between Sant’Anna School, Chongqing University and Chongqing Municipality, with the involvement of the Consulate General Italy. The objective of the SIIB-C is the creation of a Sino-Italian center for the development of joint research and training programs, as well as start-up incubation. In the second part of the meeting, the Vice President of Chongqing University, Liu Hanlong, presented the fields in which the University of Chongqing excels, among which we mention the faculties of engineering, urban planning and artificial intelligence. Mr Liu then recalled the centrality of the relationship with the Sant’Anna School in the internationalization plans of the Chinese university and praised the work of the Galilei Institute, promoter of academic exchanges between Italy and South-west China. In the last part of the meeting, Vice President Liu and the Head of Delegation Dr Petrocelli exchanged some evaluations to promote academic, scientific and technological cooperation between Italy and Chongqing.
Following the meeting, Alberto Di Minin, Director of GGII and professor at the Institute of Management of Sant’Anna School, said that “the GGII is an outpost for the ‘Sistema Italia’, a concept well understood by the Members of the Parliament who visited us today. We are very glad to hear that they appreciated our effort to work as a platform for other five Italian universities for the development of new academic programs with our Chinese partners. Furthermore, we are also very excited to know that they consider of primary importance the involvement of numerous industrial partners into this adventure.”