Funding Policies and Research Values: Strategies & Needs; Risks & Prospects#

Programme#

Venue: Trieste, Monday 12 May 2014 - Aula Magna, Scuola Superiore di Lingue Moderne per Interpreti e Traduttori, Via Filzi 1

Download the programme.
Download a presentation of the workshop, including background, rationale and expected results.

09:00-09:30
Welcome address from the Italian Minister for Public Education, University and Research and by the Rector of the University of Trieste (tbc) and opening remarks by Prof. Genoveva Martí, Director of the AE Barcelona Knowledge Hub and the convenor, Prof. Ag. Cinzia Ferrini.

9:30-10:00 Section 1A – Strategies

• Chair: Michele Pipan (Research delegate and professor at the Department of Mathematics and Geosciences, University of Trieste)
• Speaker: Donald Bruce Dingwell (MAE, 3rdt European Research Council Secretary General, Chair in Mineralogy and Petrology. Ludwig-Maximilian-University of Munich): Preparing for the unexpected: why tomorrow´s greatest research will be individual, bottom-up, and global.

10:00-10:15 - Discussion

10:15-10:45 Section 1B – Needs

• Chair: Giacomo Todeschini (Research delegate and professor at the Department of Humanities, University of Trieste)
• Speaker: Jürgen Mittelstraß (MAE, former President of the Academia Europaea, Emeritus in Philosophy at the University of Constance, Director of the Constance Science Forum, President of the Austrian Science Council): Why supporting the Humanities matters: the need of new models of research funding

10:45-11:00 Discussion

11:00-11:30 Coffee Break

11:30-12:00 Section 2A – Risks

• Chair: Marina Sbisà, Head of the Department of Humanities (tbc)
• Speaker: Carolyn Dooley Gianturco (MAE, President of the National Edition of Alessandro Stradella’s Opera Omnia): The silence of culture. The decline of public funds in the arts & the humanities and the fate of national editions in southern European countries: Italy and Spain as case studies

12:00-12:15 Discussion

12:15-12:45 Section 2B – Prospects

• Chair: Renato Gennaro (Vice-Rector and professor at the Department of Life Science, University of Trieste )
• Speaker: Maurizio Brunori (MAE, member of the Accademia dei Lincei, Emeritus in Biochemistry at the University of Rome “La Sapienza”, President of the Euro Mediterranean Academic Network/ EMAN): The additional value of the network model for multidisciplinary research projects: mediterranean cultures in dialogue

12:45-13:00 Discussion and Conclusions

Expected results of the workshop are the following:#

• To improve awareness of distortions caused by exclusive use of the research funding model for natural sciences also for humanistic studies, in view of the need to reassess and to reinforce international standards of quality for humanistic studies
• To highlight the characteristics of researchers and the research they produce in the Humanities, regarding their distinctive objects, purposes, competence, methods, tools, economic costs and human resources
• To emphasize that the increasingly common policy of funding only team or group research projects also in the Humanities often fails to reward excellence and originality, and necessarily undermines niche-studies of high cultural value by individuals and independent researches
• To point to successful models of allocating funds, to avoid relegating cultural heritage to silence and instead to foster dialogue with it