BOLOGNA, JUNE 12 – UN University’s new Insitute on ‘Big Data and Artificial Intelligence for Human Habitat Change Management’ will be in Bologna. TheEmilia-Romagna Region, which in 2020 had put forward a proposal to build the institute together with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the University of Bologna, confirmed that the site known as Tecnopolo will host the center which was ratified at the 78th session by the UN University Council at the end of that same year.
The activities will begin by mid-2024. In the three-year period of 2023-2025, the region will invest five million euros along with the 6 million in addition to the 40 million allocated by Maeci to build the F2 building complex, the future home – already under construction – of the new UN University Institute at the former Manifattura Tabacchi.
The new institute will attract students and faculty from around the world. The announcement was made at the Bologna Business School’s Villa Guastavillani headquarters during a two-day workshop that will conclude tomorrow attended by experts from around the world gathered to discuss the goals and priorities of the new institute, the research to be triggered and the opportunities for talent.
Tshilidzi Marwala, rector of the United Nations University, Anna Maria Bernini, minister of universities and research, Stefano Bonaccini, president of the Emilia-Romagna Region, and Giovanni Molari, president of the University of Bologna, explained details of the project at a press conference. Also present were the regional councilors for School, University, Research, Digital Agenda, Paola Salomoni, and for Economic Development and Green Economy, Labor, Training and International Relations, Vincenzo Colla, as well as Matteo Lepore, the Mayor of Bologna. A video message was sent by Maria Tripodi, undersecretary of state at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.
“Three years ago, it might have seemed impossible. Today, however, we are here to say that we did it. And once again that we have made it together,” said Bonaccini: “We are proud to have in Emilia-Romagna’s Data Valley a new seat of the United Nations University, which will deal, thanks to its unique infrastructure and expertise, with one of the most urgent and complex challenges, that of climate change, the consequences of which our land is dramatically paying for.”
Proposed by then UN Secretary-General U Thant in 1969, UN University held its first academic year in 1975 thanks to the generosity of the government of Japan. It currently has 13 institutes in 12 countries around the world. It is headquartered in Tokyo. (@OnuItalia)
