Italy’s Fondazione Cotec, Spain’s Fundación Cotec and Portugal’s l’Associação Cotec, organisations that support research and technological innovation, will meet in Rome on May 17 to take stock of the state and performance of each country’s research and innovation system. To this end the meeting will provide a wide range of statistics and information about the resources devoted to innovation activities, the results achieved in terms of the generation of new technical and scientific knowledge and its use in boosting the international competitiveness of businesses. The presentation of Cotec’s 2016 Report on innovation in Italy will be hosted at the Sports Club of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and will be opened by Ambassador Elisabetta Belloni, Secretary-General of the Foreign Ministry, and by Professor Luigi Nicolais, President of the Cotec Foundation. It will be followed by a debate on “Technology, from Local to Global” in which representatives of large corporations, public agencies and new knowledge-based companies will discuss the problems underlying technological development which, even if only occurring at local level, must be able to tackle the challenge of internationalisation. The closing remarks will be made by Fabrizio Nicoletti, the Minister of Labour and the head of the Foreign Ministry’s Scientific and Technological Cooperation Unit.
The theme of research recently took centre-stage in Australia where, on May 5, the Italian Institute of Culture in Melbourne hosted the third edition of the “Italian Scientists Down Under” conference, an opportunity for Italian researchers working in research institutes and universities in Australia to meet and network. The Italian Consul General in the city, Marco Maria Cerbo, welcomed participants and Andrew Holmes, President of the Australian Academy of Sciences, outlined the state of bilateral scientific and technological cooperation between the two countries. He highlighted the cooperation between the Australian Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Lincei. The Italian Embassy’s Science Attaché, Oscar Moze, gave a presentation on the theme of scientific diplomacy as a key component of Italian foreign policy. He was followed by 15 scientists from different disciplines (aerospace, chemistry, physics, medicine, veterinary medicine, biology and mathematics) who illustrated the high quality of the studies carried out by Australia’s various scientific institutions. About 30 scientists from the big Italian scientific community in Melbourne attended the meeting. At the end of the conference the science attaché presented the activities performed by the Association for Research between Italy and Australia (ARIA-SA), and set the dates for the next conference, to be held in Sydney on Sept. 29 and in Perth on Nov. 4.
