CHAIR
Though associated to specific PromS, our Chairs are awarded for those emerging and cross-field disciplines which are the focus of scientific interests beyond single multidisciplinary projects. Chairs are therefore awarded to internationally renowned experts who contributed to their establishment. Lectures are conceived for PhD students belonging to different Schools, as well as for academics belonging to different disciplinary sectors.
Chair 2007/08
-
Chair 2008/09 -
Chair 2009/10
Archaeology, Environment, Complexity
Collaboration between archaeology and science has always been extraordinarily fertile, contributing significantly to
the understanding of historical processes and stimulating research and application to the study of complex scientific
phenomena recorded in the field of archaeology and in the research on the origins of life (archaea bacteria). An
intention in proposing this chair was to recognize an interesting new chapter of this alliance. Research into the traces
of past activity, like a plot to decipher, persists in different environmental matrices as different forms of
contamination, revealing precious historical information. At the same time, past activity can also provide information
on sources of environmental contamination and how they spread. Environmental and ecological modelling can be
useful to describe and interpret the complexity of this data. A further lesson that can be drawn from this type of
research is closely linked to the sustainability of human exploitation of land and resources. Loss of natural resources
can be a consequence of activities that had irreversible impact in the course of history.
^UP
Archeometria
Archeometria joins experts, teachers and researchers in scientific and classical studies; they are all involved in the
preservation of cultural heritage. This chair aims at: a) developing the subject itself; b) promoting professional
education of young researchers in a multidisciplinary area; c) encouraging methodological debate among professional
skills; d) releasing results.
^UP
Art and Science of Reflection
The Chair is aimed at showing the relationships existing between art and science in an exemplary area of research:
the use (both practical and theoretical) of mirrors. In an artistic context, the concept of specularity is fundamental
since the Renaissance (one of the myths of foundation of perspective, for instance, is concerned with theories of
reflection). Also from the technical point of view there are several interrelations between technologies related to the
fabrication of mirrors and the arts: convex mirrors and related theories inspire Flemish art from the 15th until the
17th century; the production of planar mirrors in 16th century Venice is essential to contemporary Italian painting;
throughout the 18th century there are several uses of specularity, including a multiplicity of distorting effects. Thus,
it appears to be of great interest to investigate in a series of well-structured lectures the relationship among optical
theories, physiology of perception and theories of art.
^UP
Bioeconomics
This recent subject concerns the description of survival and reproduction mechanisms in each living beings. Bioeconomics is based on adaptation principles, that are already studied in depth by ecology, ethology, socio-biology, anthropology and economics. In bioeconomics you find a bidirectional exchange between evolutionary biology and economics, that allows the explanation of different aspects in human evolution (anthropology). For these reasons, bioeconomics is a pure frontier subject, both for its innovative character and for its multidisciplinary vocation.
^UP
Biobanking
Biobanks and their interests are growing rapidly, it is therefore necessary to get a common regulation for their
institution and use. Educating high qualified researchers, that study biology, medicine, informatics and law, is also
very important. In Italy, there are no chairs in genetic biobanking; so the institution of such a discipline is an
important step to the definition of new researchers with multidisciplinary and unique in our nation skills.
^UP
Cognitive Sciences
This Chair represents an important point of reference for all the research areas involved in this subject. The term
“Cognitive Sciences” is used to underline the multidisciplinary character of the personality required, that has to study
strictly applicative disciplines (e.g. medical applications) and also theoretical and methodological ones (models and
speculative sciences). For this Chair a worldwide important professor is expected and he has to give a contribution of
integration, showing and discussing the implications of each research that compose the entire project.
^UP
Contagion and Immunity
This Chair faces problems related to the influence that derives from migration of people, from socioeconomic
conditions and from infectious events, modifying immune response and determining new pathologies.
^UP
Econophysics
Within the study of complex systems, the interest of some physicists has recently been addressed towards the
definition and use of models for quantitative finance, giving rise to a new discipline named Econophysics. In this
framework the financial markets, being the result of an interaction between many agents, can be considered as the
prototype of a complex system, whose behaviour is therefore analyzed by using methodologies inherited from
statistical mechanics and theoretical physics. With the Chair Econophysics we intend to present a multidisciplinary
approach to the analysis of complexity in economic and financial systems, endeavouring to create a constructive
interaction and synergy between two communities of excellence - the first undertaking academic research in
quantitative sciences, the second operating in the framework of economics and financial institutions - with the long
term goal of building a common language and methodology.
^UP
Economethics
This Chair involves different areas: economics, law, history and management. Its characteristics are: a) specification of additional ways to reform and intervene on policy, so as to speed up companies adhesion to CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility); b) creation of new methodologies to measure internally (accountancy) and externally (budget) and the accountability of a CSR level adopted by firms; c) determination of social and cultural context where cooperation produces (un)efficient allocation and resources exploitation.
^UP
Ethic of Science
This Chair allows the participation and the contribution to the ethic-political debate on an important subject,
deepening scientific and social aspects, especially referring to the researcher of the future.
^UP
Formal tools to analyse classical phenomena
This Chair aims at selecting important personalities who applied formal methods – usually employed for the analysis of natural phenomena – to classical texts and products such as pieces of arts, movies, literature, poetry, so as to lead to a new research trend. For example, let us think about catastrophe theory or about random numbers and try to interpret Escher’s depictions and many other texts revealing a great heuristic complexity.
^UP
History and environmental governance
This Chair aims at facing two relevant problems concerning environment: a) the quick development of the structural
frame, and b) the remarkable interaction among different policies. Therefore the Chair needs the presence of
historical skills, able to outline the environmental scenarios changes in the middle and long period; methodologies
able to analyse different environmental policies, often acted by national and international, public and private actors.
^UP
Metaphorein. Translation, transposition, interpretation
Fields of this Chair are: a) relationship between literary language and other languages; b) translation system from one
language to another (poetry, fiction, essay); c) transposition among artistic languages (novel - cinema, poetry -
figurative arts, figurative arts - fiction, poetry - music, script theories – parodies, etc.); d) relationship between
literary and scientific languages; e) processes of interpreting a text according to its linguistic configuration.
^UP
Models of modernization
The Chair would like to offer a wider reading of the problems of Italian modernization on a multidisciplinary and
comparative level that highlights the different political, economic and social dimensions which thereby resulted in
Italy’s most prosperous era of modernization after the Second World War. The peculiarity of the Italian case is
represented by the fact that during the sixty years of the Republic, Italy underwent a series of structural processes
which all happened at the same time which in other European countries took place in different stages: economic
development, social and cultural modernization and the full-fledged affirmation of mass democracy all came to an
end just in the years that State centrality and the role of domestic political elites were seriously challenged in
Europe. The way the Italian political, economic and social system confronted and handled this series of processes as
well as the consequences which the various approaches undertaken had on the political system, both on the
institutional and governmental level and on the relations with the social system and without undermining the
comparative implications of this experience with other similar experiences in Europe, are all elements at the heart of
discussion of this Chair.
^UP
Stam Cells
Studying stem cells and their differentiation represent a new frontier in evolutionary biology and a possible treatment
for many human pathologies. Knowledge of stem cells is complex and needs further analysis, because of the
importance of this discipline from different points of view (scientific, medical, ethical and social).
^UP
Web-community and web-citizenship
The selection will concern personalities of scientific community that have studied the theme of webcommunity and
web-citizenship in social, cultural, economic, political sense in the age of knowledge globalization. He/her will be
well-known in international scientific milieu in order to the development of internet search engines and computer
sciences, organization of digital libraries, machine learning, text compression, speech synthesis and signal processing,
but also network theory, information ethic and legality of information and data access in the web-community,
guardianship and education of the citizens of web community.
^UP
