Università degli studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia

Anvur, two Unimore 'Departments of Excellence' awarded

From Mur a substantial amount of funding to implement scientific and educational development projects.

Anvur, the National Agency for the Evaluation of the University System and Research, has published a list of the 180 departments of excellence at state universities that have distinguished themselves for the quality of their research and scientific and didactic planning. 

Two Unimore's 'excellent' departments will receive major funding in the five-year period 2023-2027 to realise their scientific and educational development projects. The Departments of Education and Human Sciences and of Medical and Surgical Sciences of the Mother, Children, and Adults received awards.

The scientific project for the development of the Department of Education and Human Sciences (DESU) starts from a problem to which research can offer cognitive and operational answers.

Despite the liberal character of Western societies, the widespread availability of goods, services and access to information in the digital space, we are witnessing the emergence of illiteracies that prevent many from consciously participating in civil society, facilitate inequalities and manipulation, and weaken democratic debate and social cohesion.

The overall objective is to make DESU an interdisciplinary pole of national and international relevance in the study of illiteracy with a high social cost and in the identification of educational-teaching intervention methods to combat it, also through the development of key competences, in formal and non-formal education contexts, from childhood to adulthood, as recommended by UNESCO and the European Council.

In cooperation with local authorities and major national players, therefore, DESU intends to promote the continuous training of teachers and educators around illiteracy.

“Our department, - says the Director, Prof. Annamaria Contini - stands out in the national panorama of educationally-oriented departments for three essential aspects: the design capacity of its staff in terms of research, also at international level; the markedly interdisciplinary nature of the study interests that are cultivated in it; the intensity of its collaborative relations with the territory for the qualitative improvement of educational services. I am certain that, thanks to the financial support provided by the MUR (Ministry of Universities and Research) to the departments selected as excellent, DESU will be able to consolidate its strengths and set itself even more ambitious goals”.

The Project of the Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences of the Mother, Children, and Adults focuses on the creation of an incubator and accelerator for advanced research and training, the ' Centre for Multi-Omic and Precision Medicine ', founded on two strongly integrated pillars, one devoted to the development of new diagnostic approaches and the other to new 'personalised' therapies based on molecular, cellular and gene technology.

The ambition of the project is to impact on clinical areas that are still neglected and/or orphaned: onco-haematology, immunology, genetics and chronic diseases; topics of great health, socio-economic and scientifically challenging relevance.

The project, articulated according to a detailed timetable and several integrated work-packages (WP) with targeted and verifiable objectives, will involve departmental researchers, already leaders in their respective fields, who will be joined by new lecturers, biotechnologists, doctors, PhD students selected over the next five years.

The teams involved in the Centre will develop WPs in existing research facilities that have been further enhanced with new state-of-the-art equipment in the fields of imaging, cytometry and genomics. The Centre's development and sustainability will be ensured by synergies with projects of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) already assigned to departmental units within the framework of National Research and Development Centres and Extended Partnerships, by consolidated partnerships with the biomedical supply chain of Modena and by existing collaborations with national and international pharmaceutical companies.

"This is a very prestigious and important result - says Prof. Antonello Pietrangelo, Director of the Department - which rewards all the staff of the Department and projects the Department at the top of the national level, in a perspective of further growth and development for the next five years. Special thanks go to those who worked with me on the drafting and finalisation of the project."

The Departments of Excellence represent an innovative and financially supportive intervention, provided for by Law 232 of 2016 (Budget Law 2017). The aim is to identify and fund the best 180 departments of state universities every five years within the 14 CUN areas. These are departments that stand out for the quality of the research they produce and the quality of their development projects, to which an annual budget of 271 million euro is allocated.

Categorie: International - english