On Friday 30th, the name of La Sapienza’s new rector will be announced

The name of the new rector of La Sapienza University, who will succeed the current rector Antonella Polimeni, will be announced on Friday 30th. Voting will continue until 12 noon; the count is scheduled to begin at 2 pm in the university’s main lecture theatre and will be streamed live. There were initially five candidates, but the run-off will be between Professor Antonio Carcaterra (Engineering) and Professor Fabio Lucidi (Psychology). Antonio Carcaterra is a full professor of Applied Mechanics to Machines. “The aim of this manifesto,” he writes in his election programme, “is to build a shared vision of what the University we wish to hand over to society in the near future should be. This is a fundamental question that is often sidestepped to make way for the urgency and exclusive pressure of immediate concerns. However, neglecting this question prevents us from defining the ideals upon which to base our convictions for the future, and from building long-term strategies upon them. This, however, is what we owe to the society in which we live. And above all, to ourselves, as we recall the profound reasons that led us to choose to dedicate our lives to the university. We must therefore be active protagonists of our time, capable of helping to provide answers to the great questions facing the global community: using our own tools, our own methods and our own passion.” Fabio Lucidi is a full professor of Psychometrics.

“No project for Sapienza – University of Rome,” she writes, amongst other things, in her programme, “can, at this stage, have the arrogance to present itself as a finished package; rather, it must be an open laboratory for knowledge policies, intended as a permanent forum for discussion, analysis and strategic planning, to be carried out through assemblies, debates and individual exchanges. It must, therefore, aim to jointly develop visions, guidelines and operational proposals capable of strengthening the democratic discussion of issues and guiding medium- to long-term reform processes, designed to reinforce the best measures implemented to date and, at the same time, to identify possible areas for improvement”. In Italia, the term of office of the rector of a state university lasts six years and is a single, non-renewable term at the same institution.