A scuola di clima: research and innovation for a sustainable future. The Sant'Anna School's commitment to combating climate change
A week of meetings, debates, laboratories, film screenings and scientific popularisation events to raise awareness of the climate crisis and discuss possible solutions that can come from the scientific world. 'At school for the climate: research and innovation for a sustainable future' is the title of the initiative to present the commitment of the Sant'Anna School on one of the crucial issues of our society: the challenge to climate change.
"In recent months many research groups at Scuola Sant'Anna have been discussing how to apply their scientific activities to this issue. This initiative is a further step forward as we try to create synergy and find interdisciplinary paths to propose technological and political solutions to the climate crisis,' comments Alberto Mazzoni, assistant professor at The BioRobotics Institute and one of the promoters of the event.
The programme of initiatives
Addressing Climate Change
The main event, entitled 'Addressing Climate Change: a few contributions from Sant'Anna' will take place on Monday 20 November at 9 a.m. in the Aula Magna of the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna. Through a multidisciplinary approach, which combines economic studies, legal and philosophical perspectives, the role of technology, new practices of sustainable agriculture, the Scuola Sant'Anna puts forward ideas, projects, solutions, synergies to find concrete answers to the climate crisis.
The event concludes with a reflection by the new Interdisciplinary Research Centre on Sustainability and Climate on good decarbonisation practices to be implemented at Sant'Anna School. In fact, the School's aim is not only to do research on climate change, but also to decarbonise research. the Scuola Sant'Anna is proceeding to study both the containment of energy consumption and the production of renewable energy.
Understanding the climate crisis
From 14 to 20 November, the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna is organising a series of initiatives to talk about climate change from different perspectives: workshops, seminars, debates, quizzes and film screenings are scheduled to take place between Pisa and Pontedera to discuss central themes such as the social and political implications that may arise as a consequence of man-made global warming, the management of water resources, the weight of political choices, the role of technology and artificial intelligence, and the impact of climate change on biodiversity.
Three events are scheduled for Tuesday 14 November. It starts at 2 p.m. with the seminar 'Who takes the land? Quantifying the use of built-up land by economic sectors to assess biodiversity-related transition risks in France' by the Institute of Economics (Room 3, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna). Mathilde Salin, a young researcher from CIRED and Banque de France, will illustrate the recent measures adopted by the French parliament on the use of built-up land.
At 4.00 p.m., in the Aula Magna Storica, the meeting 'Addressing Climate Change: Legal and Philosophical Perspectives' organised by the Dirpolis Institute, with talks by Alberto Pirni, Barbara Henry, Valentina De Gregorio, Riccardo Luporini, Paola Merli, Stefano Porfido and Antonio Manzoni.
The 14 November initiatives continue outside the School, with an appointment at the Volta Pagina Literary Café (Via San Martino 71, Pisa, 7.30 p.m.). "Quante ne sai sul clima?" A quiz with economic researchers to test everyone's state of knowledge on climate change issues.
On Wednesday 15 November at 4 p.m., the initiatives move to Pontedera, at the ARTES 4.0 headquarters (Viale Rinaldo Piaggio, 34), with the workshop 'CLIMAX - the challenge of sustainability and new technologies' organised by the BioRobotics Institute. Francesco Greco and Donato Romano will present to the public and industries that are part of the ARTES 4.0 consortium some technological solutions to promote sustainable production and in line with the objective of reducing the negative impact on the environment. Introduction by Paolo Dario, professor emeritus of the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna.
On Monday 20 November at 8.30 p.m. at the Arsenale cinema in Pisa is the screening of the film 'Honeyland' by Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov (2019), the story of a beekeeper intent on saving her bees from the threat of man. The film, which won an award at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, will be introduced by a talk by Alice Caselli, a research fellow at the Plant Science Research Centre.
"The Sant'Anna School is showing great sensitivity around the issue of climate change. With this initiative we want to share what we can do, as a university, towards the challenge of climate change. We will take what emerges to Cop 28 in Dubai, where one of our delegations will be present,' says Marco Frey, full professor of the Interdisciplinary Research Centre on Sustainability and Climate at the Sant'Anna School.
