The Italian Embassy and Cultural Institute in Copenhagen organised the 6th edition of the Italian Researchers in Denmark Day on 5-6 March. The event, which was entitled “The Future is Already Here”, was hosted in the elegant frame of the Glückstadt Palace, the Residence of the Italian Ambassador in Copenhagen, and was attended by a large number of researchers, Research Fellows and university professors.
The conference offered an important forum of debate to Italian researchers in Denmark. The use of computer technologies also offered an opportunity of dialogue and exchange between the world of academia and that of business at a networking lunch.
The Day’s first session was dedicated to university-level education and one of the speakers was Professor Alessandro Paccagnella, Pro-rector for International Relations at the University of Padua, who stressed the importance of new technologies in scientific research and how they open interconnections with other international agencies and efforts. He was followed by Fabrizio Nicoletti, Director for Innovation and Research of the MAECI, who explained the fundamental role and the constant effort of Italy’s scientific diplomacy in promoting Brand Italy and reported the positive results of the recent Conference of Scientific Attachés and the Foreign Ministry’s commitment in promoting the Italian knowledge-based society.
The second session was entitled “The Digital Factory” and focused on the importance of developing and using new technologies. The speakers scheduled to speak in this session were Donatella Giampaolo, head of the commercial division of E-GEOS and Nigel Edmondson, managing director of MADE, the Manufacturing Academy of Denmark. The morning’s third and last session entitled “Society and Economy: Back to the Future”, combined social issues, archaeology and economy through the contribution of experts who showed the benefits that new technologies bring to human and social sciences.
The afternoon’s agenda scheduled the Economic Council, which convened Italian companies working in Denmark and Danish companies operating in Italy and featured the presentation of the latest encouraging statistics on the growth of bilateral economic relations. The conference was preceded by a working dinner with managers and CEOs of companies active in Italian-Danish cooperation activities such as Maersk, Rockwool, FCA, Grimaldi, Cementir and Ferrero.
The Council’s debate focused on the two Countries’ commercial, tourist and investment-oriented relations, which reveal to be strong and constantly growing, as affirmed by Steen Thorsted, Senior Consultant of the Danish Trade Council at this Foreign Ministry, Helle Bundgaard, Senior Advisor of Dansk Industri (the local equivalent of Confindustria) and Jan Snogdal, President of the Bilateral Chamber of Commerce.
This year, the case study on successful companies was focused on Formula Automobile, the Ferrari dealer in Denmark, which screened a highly impacting video on the success story of the Maranello-based brand.
Great expectations were raised by the launch of the first edition of BIRD, the Best Italian Researcher in Denmark award, which contributes to strengthening the two Countries’ bilateral relations in the field of science and technology.
