Francesco Silvestri

Francesco is PhD Candidate in Politics, Human Rights and Sustainability at DIRPOLIS Institute. His research focuses on China’s water governance landscape examined through the lens of Political Economy. His PhD thesis addresses this complex and multilayered topic by investigating two municipal water governance settings: Hangzhou and Chongqing.

Francesco is currently Acting Director at Galileo Galilei Italian Institute (GGII). Created in 2007 as one of the first Italian institutions in Chongqing, the main objective of the GGII is the strengthening of joint research projects on areas of shared expertise between Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies and Chongqing University. In order to improve research projects acceleration, GGII facilitates interaction opportunities between academics, researchers and scholars. Thanks to its well-established presence in Chongqing University campus, the GGII is able to keep an active engagement with the most innovative departments and laboratories in the municipality.

As Acting Director, Francesco is in charge of new projects development, liaison with China's institutional, academic and business community and supervision of the Galilei's office team. Francesco is co-creator and moderator of the China through the Telescope seminars, which concentrates on topics of strategic relevance to contemporary China in the areas of economy, business and policy.

Francesco has previously served as Acting Director at the Center for Italian Studies at Zhejiang University, Hangzhou (2013-2014). In this role, Francesco has organized and moderated the monthly initiative “China Policy Lab Seminars”, organized ad hoc activities in support of the Italian community in Hangzhou, and managed the relations with Hangzhou's key academic and municipal institutions. In addition, he has served as Program Manager of the 2014 and 2015’s editions of the TOChina Business Program.