Earlier this month, Bologna’s mayor and university leadership invited an interdisciplinary delegation from UVA to begin exploratory discussions on the prospect of a formal partnership in pursuit of these exciting new research horizons. Our group, consisting of University leaders from the Karsh Institute of Democracy, the Schools of Architecture and Data Science, the Equity Center, and the Provost’s office, spent an enriching few days getting acquainted with the city’s Leonardo super-computer center (one of Europe’s most powerful); its boldly ambitious plan to create a “Digital Twin” to revolutionize its municipal governance; and its vision to transform an increasingly obsolescent industrial sector into a new knowledge-based economy that aims to achieve full carbon neutrality by 2030.
New Research Horizons in Italy
New Research Horizons in Italy
he city of Bologna, Italy is embarking on an ambitious new partnership between its storied university (one of the world’s oldest) and municipal government that has the potential to dramatically modernize the city’s governance, improve democratic accountability, and deliver municipal services more equitably and sustainably. At the heart of the city’s vision is an innovative mix of supercomputing, an enthusiastic start-up culture, community engagement, impact-centered research, and real-time data collection on a broad array of quality-of-life factors ranging from energy and water use to commuting bottlenecks and access to green space.
Throughout the visit, the convergence between UVA’s and Bologna’s academic and civic leaders’ research interests and values was striking. Our Research Grand Challenge on Digital Technology and Society is preparing to address many of the questions now under active study in Bologna on how best to draw on the increasingly vast amounts of data at our fingertips to improve quality of life while avoiding the risks to human values that too often accompany rapid technological advance. Bologna’s commitment to ensuring the public’s open access to, and benefits from, the Leonardo supercomputer parallels our significant expansion of computer capacity for the public good as Virginia’s flagship public university. Its focus on developing new and innovative ways to interact with the broader society tracks with our efforts to advance democratic principles and equitable governance in our own civic life. Our entrepreneurship and biotechnology initiatives that aim to transform Virginia’s economy correspond closely with Bologna’s. And the city’s burgeoning interests in marshalling the fruits of research to benefit the broader public good on everything from biodiversity and renewable energy through sensible, human-friendly urban planning are an easy match to our own research priorities.
With so much in common, the visit made clear that UVA and Bologna would gain much from collaboration on our mutual priorities, and Bologna’s visionary mayor Matteo Lepore invited us to develop a special partnership with the city. In the months ahead, we look forward to developing an ambitious work plan to advance our research enterprise’s priorities with such promising international partners.
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