Forlì, the master's degree in nautical engineering for luxury yachts launches

Next academic year 2024-2025 the Alma Mater's Forlì Campus will see the start of a master's degree course in nautical engineering, one of the few in Italy, the only one on the Adriatic coast, and also the only one focused on the shipbuilding of high-end pleasure boats, unlike the other proposals from universities such as Genoa, Trieste and Naples. Behind the new course is in fact a brand that symbolises luxury yachts Made in Italy, Ferretti, which co-financed it together with local institutions (Emilia-Romagna Region, CariForlì Foundation, Forlì Municipality and the Chamber of Commerce of Romagna) and the University of Bologna. The project can count on a total funding of almost 7 million euro and on a public-private partnership that not only injects resources but also creates and manages a real steering committee to bring together demand from the nautical sector and academic supply.

Out of the two-year specialisation course at the Forlì campus will come a graduate able to work in the design and production of pleasure boats and related components, capable of liaising with the various professionals involved and following all the phases, from the engineering of the vessels through to large-scale production and distribution and market dissemination. The professional outlets are not limited to shipbuilding, but embrace industries for the exploitation of marine resources, shipping companies, the technical corps of the Navy and Harbour Offices, and research institutes. Fluid dynamics, polymeric composite materials, naval architecture, computer aided yacht design, naval propulsion, on-board systems and fittings are just some of the mandatory training activities within a programme that ranges from mechanical and transport technologies to design, from materials innovation to manufacturing 4.0, from sustainable mobility to big data. Synergies will also be possible with the Aerospace Engineering and Mechanical Engineering courses already located on the Forlì Campus. Where Ciclope-Centre for International Cooperation in Long Pipe Experiments, an international research infrastructure dedicated to the study of wall turbulence, is also based.

The lessons of the new degree course in Forlì will be mainly in Italian, but the aim of the project is to attract international students. In fact, it has been awarded a regional funding of 1.5 million euro by participating in the first call for bids activated within the Regional Law 2/2023 to attract and retain talents, i.e. highly specialised people who can find a job, a professional or research space in Emilia-Romagna. Among the objectives to be pursued, as indicated in Article 6 of the same law, there is in fact support, including financial support, for universities, research bodies and other entities in the regional research and innovation ecosystem to foster the discovery, creation and exploitation of highly specialised talents in line with the areas of the regional smart specialisation strategy. And the boating industry is one of the sectors with the greatest potential, especially in the segment of boats over 24 metres in length, a typical product of Adriatic shipyards: it is worth more than 3.2% of the national GDP, more than 3.3 billion euros in exports, and 200,000 employees along the supply chain (Emilia-Romagna is in third place in the national ranking for employees in the boating industry, after Lombardy and Veneto, according to Viale Aldo Moro data).