VIU News

The second PROMARES newsletter is now available. Read all about the project's progress over the past semester

PROMARES aims at tackling the challenges hampering the full-fledged development of the potential for maritime and multimodal freight transport in
the Programme Area. Its main objective is therefore to enhance cross-border maritime and multimodal freight transport by involving transport stakeholder and policy makers facing the same cross-border challenges, from both a strategic and operational perspective, through the increased cooperation among them. 

 PROMARES | Promoting maritime and multimodal freight transport in the Adriatic Sea is a research project funded by the Interreg Italy-Croatia Program. 
The Promares Network is led by the Port Network Authority of the Eastern Adriatic Sea and involves 12 partners and it is led by the Port Network Authority of the Eastern Adriatic Sea.

 
Updated information for students travelling from abroad to Italy

From 16 to 31 January 2021 entry and transit in the national territory are forbidden for travellers who have visited or transited through Brazil in the 14-day period prior to their expected day of entry.

Travellers visiting or transiting through the UK in the 14-day period prior to their entry to Italy are allowed entry to Italy only if resident in the country since before 23 December 2020 or for essential reasons that they must declare. 

On December 17, 2020, VIU celebrated the end of the Fall term with a closing ceremony held online.

This term has been challenging, to say the least, but nevertheless, VIU had the pleasure to welcome - physically and remotely -  69 students from 18 different nationalities. Some students even managed to live in Venice throughout this whole period and our hope is that they've been able to enjoy their stay and learn a lot from this new context and from VIU's courses. 

SUSPORT project activities have begun with the analysis of the environmental sustainability and energy efficiency of Adriatic ports. The main objective is to assess the current performance of Adriatic ports in order to gauge the impact of the measures that will be implemented by the port authorities in the next phases of the project. In this context, VIU elaborated the common methodology to carry out the territorial needs assessment, with particular attention to the evaluation of the carbon footprint related to onshore and maritime operations in the port areas.

The Euro-Project Training Unit at VIU through the Covid-19 crisis has transformed its curriculum in an innovative way while maintaining the quality standard of the courses.

The participants responded splendidly and actively to test and evaluate this new model in order to create an interactive community of trainees dialoguing intensively with the course organizers and trainers.

The Open Innovation Community is open to all stakeholders to discuss and advocate for user-centric approaches and crossmodal cooperation in passenger and freight transport, and who wish to contribute to the debate on the policy requirements of emerging mobility solutions and to validate the results of the SPROUT pilot cities.

If you or your organization wish to become a member of the Open Innovation Community and contribute to the debate on the policy requirements of emerging mobility solutions and to validate the results of the SPROUT pilot cities you can subscribe to the OIC.

The purpose of the ICARUS project is to increase and improve sustainable travel options in coastal transport services and provide alternatives to independent car use.

These solutions include harmonization of timetables, availability of car/bike sharing within transport nodes, innovative ICT solutions for seamless flow of information, integrated intelligent multimodal payment systems, dynamic travel planning, and cross-border intermodal services. The innovative solutions will trigger a behavioral shift away from personally owned vehicles in favor of public and shared services.

Over the course of 2020, the project group analyzed the current state of the art in terms of innovative solutions, mobility gaps and needs, as well as by capitalizing on EU and international practices. This provided useful data to calibrate pilot activities.

PROMARES was presented at a round table discussion during the transnational workshop at the final conference of the ISTEN project.

The roundtable discussion focused on Logistics platforms, intermodal transport, and regional cooperation: challenges, lessons learned, and possible solutions from Interreg projects. Other participants included representatives from the DG REGION of the EU Commission and the Interreg ADRION Managing Authority, as well as several projects co-funded by different Interreg Programmes having similar scope: PROMARES (Interreg Italy-Croatia), COMODALCE, REIF, InterGreenNodes (Interreg Central Europe), NEWBRAIN, MultiAPPRO, ADRIPASS (Interreg ADRION). 

PROMARES was presented by the lead partner of the project, the Port Network Authority of the Eastern Adriatic Sea-Ports of Trieste and Monfalcone.

After the foundation of Venice International University in 1995, the founding members began sending students to Venice to take joint courses as part of their curriculum. During that first semester, in which I myself taught, there were just ten courses on offer to the 60 students from the five member universities who enrolled. Over the course of twenty-five years, the membership of VIU has expanded to fifteen countries, and the program for students, known as the Globalization Program for the past decade, has continued to evolve and grow, becoming an articulated interdisciplinary program that attracts 150 students each semester from across the globe. 

Dear Friends,


We are reaching the end of a very unusual year that has caused a great amount of suffering and instability in the world.
We were all forced to come to terms with the pandemic, each country in its own way.

But we are closing 2020 on a positive note: in the last few weeks there have been rays of hope concerning the imminent arrival of a series of vaccines, and we can be cautiously optimistic regarding the New Year.

December 16, 2020 | Webinar | 2:30 pm – 4:30 pm CET

Professor Luc Steels, MUHAI project Scientific Coordinator for Venice International University, will hold a session entitled “History Lessons for the Future: Toward a Human-centric governance of AI” at the 2-hour online symposium organized by the initiative “RRI in Horizon Europe”.

The current circumstances that we are all experiencing due to the pandemic prevent us from celebrating this important occasion on our campus on San Servolo in Venice. Notwithstanding, in order to commemorate the anniversary, on December 4, VIU will host an online roundtable via zoom, with the participation of representatives from the member universities.

The fourth edition of the Venice Universities Model European Union (VeUMEU) came to an end on Saturday, November 14. Organizing this year's VeUMEU was certainly not an easy task: the two-day conference, held on November 13 and 14, 2020, was in fact meant to take place at VIU in May. However, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the event was instead moved online. Nevertheless, it was a success, generating many instructive discussions regarding Europe's most pressing sociopolitical issues.

Through the Anglo-Russian Research Network, an Exeter Modern Languages & Cultures series with Pushkin House provides an episodic history of Russian-English translation and cultural relations, from the first-ever translator of Russian poetry into English (Exeter’s Sir John Bowring) to present-day publishing.

The content seeks to entertain and be accessible to the general public, as well as Russianists. To find out more about the series, please visit this webpage

A series of monthly ‘Myco Talks’ is being run out of Exeter’s Centre for Medical Mycology.

The talks are given by some of the maximum experts in the field. The next talk, which  will focus on the topic "Tolerating challenges: lessons from pathogenic yeast", will be hosted on the 17th of December 2020 by Prof. Joseph Heitman as the Chair and Neil Gow as the Deputy Chair, with Judy Berman as the main guest speaker.

To get to know more about this event you can visit the dedicated webpage.

Each semester scholarships are awarded to talented students to contribute to the cost of living in Venice for a semester, to promote excellence and diversity in the Globalization Program.

With the unravelling of the Covid-19 global crisis, new and innovative ways of teaching and studying have been both devised and implemented. Amid this difficult situation, VIU once again proves its ambitious nature and its excellence-driven choices. In 2018 the Academic Council began a thorough review of the Globalization Program, taking into account both the students’ feedback and consultations with the member universities. The outcome is the introduction in 2021 of four new specialization tracks, alongside the Cultural Heritage, and Sustainable Development tracks.

The Calls for applications for the 2021 Intensive Graduate Activities opened December 5, 2020.  

Students and scholars from the member universities are encouraged to explore the programs on offer in 2021, and apply early to guarantee their place.

The programs are the outcome of intense collaboration among the universities and have been developed based on the mandate of the member universities through the VIU Academic Council.

Circular Economy Challenge | November 14-15, 2020 | online

Two days dedicated to teamwork and innovative projects, to find sustainable solutions towards the Circular Economy.

How to boost the Circular Economy starting from the Lagoon of Venice’s area? 
Venice International University is scientific partner in the the 5th Edition of the Climathon Venice. The event will be held on November 14-15, 2020 at the ex Church of Santi Cosma et Damiano, now called Fabbrica H3. The Climathon is organized by Venice Calls and will be hosted by SerenDPT Benefit Corporation. The Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change (CMCC) is also scientific partner in the event.

In a time where reporting about COVID-19 is no longer merely a prerogative of science journalists, the importance of empowering and training journalists, including those without specialist scientific knowledge is more relevant than ever.

Among the several outputs to be released by the QUEST Project in the second half of 2020 is JECT.AI, a tool for journalists based on AI support. This tool has been created to allow journalists to report about science more effectively.

The development of JECT.AI is led by QUEST partner City, University of London. JECT.AI takes advantage of a variety of automation systems in order to support journalists incorporating writing practices generally associated with good science journalism.