Bernini: 'We will take the Italian university to Gaza and Lebanon'

The best weapon for the future of the Middle East is scientific democracy. This is the conviction of Anna Maria Bernini, who in the Council of Ministers on Friday evening shared one of her 'pet projects': the construction of an Italian university in Gaza and Lebanon. As she herself recounted while speaking at the Economics Festival in Trento. "We can't wait," added the minister, who also outlined the road map of the intervention. "From the end of August, the head of the Civil Protection and I will begin to go to Palestine and verify which places we could build, obviously with the local authorities. Apart from the current geopolitical situation, which is very complicated, as far as we are concerned, structures such as those in flooded or war zones can be built, which are permanent, definitive, but which can be built quickly'.and the same applies to Lebanon.

Still on the international front, Bernini recalled Italia's recent participation in the Sesame research project: 'It is a synchrotron,' he explained, 'that we have lent to Jordan, together with the scientific director of this great infrastructure, the largest in the Middle East, which does advanced materials chemistry and can also do biopharma, high medicine, biology and even innovative archaeology. We have pieces of Italia, researchers, technologies and Italian companies that do great research in the world and Sesame is one of these examples'. With the particularity of hosting European, Italian, Egyptian, Iranian, Palestinian, Israeli and Jordanian scholars. "This shows us," he concluded, "that scientific democracy works and is the greatest detonator of peace we have at the moment.

In dedicating a thought, with regard to ongoing conflicts, also to Iran and the Iranian students hosted in our country ("Ten thousand scholarships have already been given to Iranians including board, lodging and higher education and now others are trying to arrive but the channel of communication has stiffened due to the war"), the holder of the Mur pledged to facilitate their arrival in our universities. She then moved on to the domestic front. On the subject of the universities' tendency to raise the no tax area Bernini issued a clear warning: 'It is a bill,' he said, 'that someone will pay sooner or later. The rectors must be certain that they can afford it. Otherwise, sooner or later the ministry and therefore all taxpayers will pay". It is understood that 'the budgets of Italian universities are all in the black by 1 billion. The polemics are legitimate, but the numbers speak'.

A thought then went to current events, starting with the appointments for the top management of the Agenzia Anvur for example. The minister rejected accusations of allotment from the opposition and defended the university competition reform that will retire the national scientific qualification after 15 years and that is about to be definitively approved by the Chamber of Deputies.

Moving on to the other hot topics - on the one hand, greater flexibility in the management of a portion of the funding that will arrive with the 2026 Ffo Fund combined with a directly proportional increase in the responsibility of the universities and, on the other, a parachute for the universities that risk being penalised by the new research assessment indicators - Bernini came to Medicine. He renewed his intention, already announced in Il Sole 24 Ore on 14 May, to reach 30,000 places as soon as possible and defended the filter semester model. In his opinion, "it has worked", but corrective measures are still needed to take on board the suggestions made by students: "Work during the semester also with simulation platforms, which we were only able to do in part last year, better connect high school and the world of medicine with the definition of programmes and test questions".