The Trentino Experience Towards the European Research Area in the Knowledge Society

1. The Trentino Experience Towards the European Research Area in the Knowledge Society Fausto Giunchiglia University of Trento Building the future in an enlarged and more integrated Europe – The Trentino foresight exercise as a contribution to the European research area.

2. Strategy

3. Be a relevant player (!) Two keywords: Excellence International dimension However: To be structural, excellence and international dimension must (!) be a property of the system as a whole (university, research centers, secondary school, local government, industry, …) Strategy – A new strategy (!)

4. Excellence within the International arena (for a small University, only alternative to a “local teaching University”) Need of critical mass: excellence possible only within a (carefully selected) limited number of areas Building excellence incrementally as a starting point of a long term process (change “dominating culture” -- key mechanism: hire top researchers – need right mix of seniors and juniors) Strategy -- Guidelines (1 out of 3) Excellence and international dimension

5. Universities have three (!) areas of core business: Teaching (bachelor level – Laurea triennale) Research (including also: Masters level – laurea Specialistica and Masters, Doctorate level, Postdoc.) Teaming up with society (technology transfer, brain transfer, startups, joint investments, …) For each of them, implement a different strategy Strategy -- Guidelines (2 out of 3) The core business

6. Five geographic areas: Trentino (and surrounding regions) – Our reference system. Need excellence and internationality as structural properties Europe (Italy as part of Europe) – The arena where we play US, Canada, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, …. – Our colleagues/ competitors East Europe -- Our future Rest of the world (India, China, Vietnam, Corea, …) – The enlarged arena Strategy -- Guidelines (3 out of 3) The geographic dimension

7. Where are we?

8. Teaching: tighter and tighter collaborations with local entities (Internships, Apprenticeships, new degrees of local interest, …), Trento School of Management, … Research and Technology Transfer: Joint projects among University, (local) research institutes, and (local) companies (regional Law 3, regional Law 6), Agenzia per lo Sviluppo (Agency for the Development of Trentino) … still a long way to go. We have just started Where are we? Trentino

9. Erasmus program Double degrees Leonardo Program Partecipation to Sixth Framework Masters and Doctorates in English … The Italian German University Where are we? Europe

10. Europe

11. Europe Double Degrees: Ongoing projects

12. Numero studenti Europe Double degrees: student mobility

13. Numero studenti Europe Leonardo da Vinci: Mobility (only outgoing)

14. Bilateral agreements American University University of California Fullbright program Multicultural University Where are we? The US, Canada, ... world

15. World Geography of bilateral agreements

16. Number of students 2001-2002 2002-2003 2003-2004 World

17. A New Initiative: Information and communication Technology (from around 1999)

18. Set of top international research institutes University of Trento (Computer Science, Telecommunications and Computer Networks, Micro-Electronics, Net Economy) ITC-Irst (Artificial Intelligence, User Oriented Informatics, Micro-Electronics, Materials Science) GraphiTech (Computer Graphics and related areas) -- Joint venture of Ini-Graphics foundation (Fraunhofer IGD Darmstadt), UniTN, ITC-Irst CreateNet (Telecommunications and Security) – Joint Venture of UniTN, ITC-Irst, Technion Haifa, Politecnico di Torino, CNR Pisa, TU Berlin, TU BudaPest Centro Ricerche FIAT (CRF) (Mobility and related areas) CNR Laboratory for applied Ontology (Knowledge engineering, knowledge management, knowledge representation, …) … The BIT School (Bolzano Innsbruck Trento) Trentino – Build critical mass

19. Bachelor in Italian – most (all) students are local Within Bachelor: Internship mandatory, possibility of joining apprenticeship program Doctorate as the focal point of the Trentino research system: 30-40 students per year from ALL research institutions (100-150 doctorate students at any time). Doctorate as one of the main sources of innovation (we hope) Joint projects among research centers (FIRB, Law 3 projects, EEC projects… when possible) Joint projects with local companies (Law 6 projects) Trentino – build the system

20. All our research centers have an international dimension Lauree specialistiche (masters) and doctorate in English Doctorate program: focus on students from East Europe and (second priority) Asia (India, Cina, Vietnam) During ’02-’03, 16 out of 40 doctorate courses were from foreign professors Post- doctoral students mainly from West Europe/ US/ Canada (mainly, but not only, using Law 3 post-doctoral program) In the last two years 12 UniTN Faculty in ICT (2 part time) from abroad have been offered positions (5 are non-Italians) The Indo Italian research center The ITC-Irst center at Haifa … and many of “usual” 6th framework research projects NOTE: PostDocs are the key for the creation of the European Research Area International dimension

21. Numero studenti 17 ciclo 18 ciclo 19 ciclo ICT (from approx. 1999) PhD at DIT

22. Excellence in selected areas and Internationality are our main focus Our effort is relatively recent … and we still have a long way to go Our next focus of interest: Build stronger connections with industry Increase dimension of international faculty (using also, but not only, “Rientro dei Cervelli” and Marie Curie programs) Increase international network (strong interest on Erasmus Mundus program) Conclusion

23. Where are we? First year undergraduate students

24. Where are we – first year undergraduate?