education

Rome

8 November 2013

Creating excellence. Strategic choices and indispensable resources for educating leaders

The title of this 12^th Annual Conference of the Aspen Junior Fellows group was conceived as embodying the Aspen Institute’s core mission, namely, that of promoting and instilling values-based leadership. The theme of this year’s session was chosen with a view to specifically focus on the growing international dimension of knowledge, and to examine whether a multidisciplinary knowledge model (of the European humanist tradition) or a specialized knowledge model is to be preferred.

Milano

25 October 2010

Kick-starting professional training

The participants launched proceedings at this National Conference with the observation that the role of technical and professional training institutes, once the powerhouse of the postwar economic boom in Italy, has been steadily declining since the early 1970s, with enrollment numbers falling inexorably. The result is that, today, these key components of Italy’s education system are no longer capable of supporting the country’s economic development, nor of keeping pace with technological advances.

Cernobbio

5 November 2010

Investing in knowledge: more innovation, better infrastructure, new school system

In this seminar, the participants examined what were identified as the major areas requiring action to enable Italy to face the new and increasingly impelling global challenges. The three areas singled out were: innovation policies, tangible and intangible knowledge-system infrastructure, and education models conducive to promoting employment and competitiveness.

Rome

15 April 2009

Reforming Italy’s university system: beating the odds

If Italy’s university system is to proceed in a new direction, there are two crucial areas that must first be given a complete overhaul: its governance and its financial framework. And, that such reforms have become necessary is certainly a widely held view. The shape of these reforms and the regulations and procedures to be adopted, on this, the eve of the sitting government’s presentation of its university reform bill, is however still a matter for lively discussion both within academia and, in more general terms, the public arena.

Cernobbio

19 July 2009

Italy’s universities: reforms and tools to render them competitive

Reform of Italy’s universities has for months been at the center of the national public debate, coinciding with the development of plans for a government review of the area. In addition to issues relating to the governance of universities and the soundness of the system’s macro-financial structure, the participants at this Conference examined ways of making the Italian university model more efficient and merit-based, focusing predominantly on the mechanisms regulating the autonomy of individual universities and the relationship between the latter and their local business communities.

Milan

9 October 2009

Jump-starting economic growth

The participants at this talk and debate session were reminded that the main priority on the economic agenda of Western countries is the immediate promotion of sustainable recovery. The fact that there are 22 million unemployed people in Europe is indicative of the social hardship caused by the recession. Linked to this surplus production capacity is a reduced ability to use leveraging (the very mechanism that induced “euphoria” within the economic system thereby triggering the crisis).