The Directorate General for Country Promotion recently hosted the board meeting of the Istituto per l’Oriente Carlo Alfonso Nallino (The Carlo Alfonso Nallino Institute for the East), Italy’s main research institute specialising in the Arab-Islamic world. The meeting examined various ideas for cooperation between the Institute and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in areas of priority interest to Italy, including in light of the events that have swept the southern Mediterranean over the last three years. Events that have thrown into increasingly sharp focus the need to step up exchanges of knowledge with that region.
Founded in 1921 and equipped with an outstanding library of over 30,000 books, the Institute is a key eastern studies resource for the Italian and international academic communities.
Collaboration with the Nallino Institute dates from 2013
The Directorate General for Country Promotion began its collaboration with the Nallino Institute, which is a key element of our support for Italian cultural relations in the Mediterranean region, in 2013. At the recent meeting, members of the Directorate, the Chair of the Institute, Claudio Lo Jacono, and the other board members examined how to encourage bilateral exchanges and university cooperation and how to raise the profile of Italian researchers abroad. They also discussed the potential of the Italian Cultural Institutes as spaces for intercultural dialogue, support for Italian language teaching, and exercises to map initiatives and contacts between the Italian research community and the Arab-Islamic world.
