Marta Cartabia’s Lecture on the 80th Anniversary of the Italian Republic Concludes the 2026 Edition of Me.Mo. – Merit and Social Mobility
The guidance and outreach initiative aimed at supporting high-achieving students from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds was once again funded this year by the MERITA project, the network bringing together Italy’s five Schools of Advanced Studies with the goal of strengthening participation in and informed access to higher education.
More than 200 students attended Professor Marta Cartabia's lecture on the 80th anniversary of the Italian Republic, held this morning, Wednesday, June 10, in the Main Hall of the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies. The event was part of the residential internship programme of Me.Mo. (Merit and Social Mobility), an orientation initiative aimed at fourth-year secondary school students selected on the basis of academic merit and their background in potentially economically and socially disadvantaged contexts.
Thanks to funding from MERITA PNRR project, the talent network that brought together five Italian Schools of Advanced Studies (Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Scuola Normale Superiore, the Collegio Superiore of the University of Bologna, the Galilean School of Higher Education of Padua, and the School of Advanced Studies of Sapienza University of Rome), students from the other institutions involved in the MERITA network also attended the lecture remotely.
Marta Cartabia’s Lecture: The Path to Personal Fulfilment Is Not Always Linear
In her address, Marta Cartabia met with Me.Mo. students, weaving together the story of her own educational and professional journey with reflections on the eighty years of the Italian Republic. At the heart of her lecture was the value of democratic participation and the ability to recognise opportunities within reality that may not always be immediately apparent.
Cartabia emphasized that building one’s own path does not necessarily follow a linear trajectory: unexpected events and even failures can help shape personal and professional choices. Drawing on episodes from her own experience, she encouraged students to view obstacles not only as setbacks but also as opportunities to explore new directions and gain a deeper understanding of their vocation. Reality, she noted, is always greater than the goals we set for ourselves and contains possibilities that are not always visible at first glance.
The 2026 Edition of Me.Mo.
The 2026 edition of Me.Mo., coordinated by the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, recorded particularly significant results. The three residential internships, held between May and June, involved 658 students selected from more than 1,800 applicants. Around 300 secondary schools participated, and more than 38% of Me.Mo. participants came from Southern Italy.
These figures confirm Me.Mo.’s role as one of the most recognizable initiatives within the MERITA network and as a project capable of reaching high-potential students, often from family backgrounds where university education is not yet an established pathway.
“Me.Mo. is one of the projects that best represents the purpose of the MERITA network: working together to make access to higher education more equitable and informed,” said Nicola Vitiello, Rector of the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies and lead coordinator of the MERITA project. “The Sant’Anna School supported and coordinated a programme involving all the institutions within the network, with the aim of reaching high-potential students who often lack direct family references in the academic world. The results of this edition confirm that Me.Mo. is a tangible instrument of social mobility and public responsibility within the higher education system: indeed, 90% of participants report that they go on to enrol at university.”
Me.Mo. is specifically aimed at so-called first-generation students—young people whose parents do not hold university degrees—with the objective of guiding them through an orientation pathway designed to broaden opportunities, reduce information inequalities, and strengthen confidence in their own potential.
For the MERITA network, Me.Mo. represents a flagship initiative. The programme has enabled the network’s institutions to work together toward a common goal, sharing expertise, tutors, educational activities, and guidance tools to bring an increasing number of students closer to the opportunities offered by advanced higher education.
The final event does not mark the end of the Me.Mo. experience. Thanks to the MERITA network’s sustainability plan and dedicated funding, the project will continue in the coming years as a network-wide initiative involving all five Schools, with the possibility of further collaborations with additional universities.
The continuation of Me.Mo. confirms the MERITA network’s commitment to establishing a permanent model of advanced educational guidance, capable of making a concrete contribution to social mobility and strengthening the role of Italy’s Schools of Advanced Studies within the national higher education system.
