Revista presei, 24 octombrie 2019

Universitatea „Cuza” din Iași, gazda celei mai importante întâlniri academice din Europa

Universitatea „Cuza”, gazda celei mai importante întâlniri academice din Europa. Este vorba despre Seminarul Rectorilor. Acesta este intitulat „Universities in a Changing Europe: 30 Years since the Fall of the Iron Curtain”. Totul este programat astăzi, 24 octombrie 2019, ora 14:00. Locul este Sala Senatului de la „Cuza”. „Seminarul este organizat cu ocazia împlinirii a 30 de ani de la căderea Cortinei de Fier. Participă rectori, prorectori, profesori din Republica Cehă, Franța, Germania, Irlanda, Italia, Republica Moldova, Olanda, Portugalia, Regatul Unit, Ucraina, Spania, reprezentând universități membre ale Grupului Coimbra, Rețelei Utrecht, Consorțiului Universitaria, Consorțiului Universităților din Republica Moldova, România și Ucraina, precum și alte universități partenere ale «Cuza»”, a transmis prof. univ. dr. Tudorel Toader, rector.

Publicație : Bună Ziua Iași

 

Rezultate remarcabile obţinute de studenţii ieşeni de la Informatică

Trei echipe, formate din nouă studenţi ai Facultăţii de Informatică şi antrenate de drd. Paul Diac, au reprezentat Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” din Iaşi la etapa Sud-Est Europeană a prestigiosului concurs de algoritmică şi programare ICPC (International Collegiate Programming Contest – SEERC 2019), organizată simultan, pe data de 19 octombrie, la Universitatea Politehnică din Bucureşti şi la Universitatea din Vinnytsia, Ucraina.

Echipa formată din Alexandru Ioniţă (master de cercetare Studii Avansate în Informatică), Cristian Vîntur (master Optimizare Combinatorială, anul I) şi Denis Banu (licenţă, anul II) a obţinut locul 10, cu 6 probleme rezolvate.

De asemenea, echipa formată din Alexandru Lungu (licenţă, anul III), Laura Cornei (licenţă, anul II) şi Sebastian Ciobanu (licenţă, anul II) a obţinut locul 11, tot cu 6 probleme rezolvate, diferenţa faţă de locul 10 fiind dată doar de punctele de penalizare, care sunt calculate în funcţie de timpul de rezolvare a problemelor.

Cea mai tânără echipă, formată din Daniel Rusu (licenţă, anul II), Nicu Căpăţână (licenţă, anul I) şi Vlad Teodorescu (licenţă, anul I), a rezolvat o problemă şi a obţinut locul 84.

Cele 100 de echipe participante au fost selectate pentru această etapă în cadrul etapelor naţionale ale celor 10 ţări din regiun

 Publicație : Evenimentul

 

  

Premii obţinute de studenţii de la Facultatea de Inginerie Electrică

 Doi studenţi de la Universitatea Tehnică „Gheorghe Asachi“ din Iaşi au obţinut locurile I şi II la un simpozion internaţional organizat de Universitatea Agora din Oradea. Competiţia s-a desfăşurat la finalul săptămânii trecute, în Oradea, dar şi la Băile Felix, judeţul Bihor, cei doi masteranzi, Mihai Andrei Luca şi Andrei Vasîlachi, de la Facultatea de Inginerie Electrică, Energetică şi Informatică Aplicată obţinând primele două poziţii de pe podium la Simpozionul Internaţional „Brainstorming în Agora Cercurilor Studenţeşti“ – BACStud 2019, ediţia a V-a. 

Cele două lucrări declarate câştigătoarea poartă numele „Optimizarea amplasării prosumatorilor în microreţele pentru reducerea pierderilor de energie activă“ şi „Minimizarea pierderilor de energie activă în reţelele electrice de joasă tensiune prin echilibrarea încărcării fazelor“, masteranzii fiind coordonaţi de către şef lucrări dr.ing. Bogdan Constantin Neagu şi conf. univ. dr. ing. Gheorghe Grigoraş, ambii de la Facultatea de Inginerie Electrică, Energetică şi Informatică Aplicată. La competiţie au participat studenţi din toate centrele universitare importante din ţară, de la 16 universităţi, dar şi de la instituţii de învăţământ superior din străinătate.

Publicație : Ziarul de Iași

 

 

Modificări importante în transportul elevilor şi studenţilor

 De reducerea de 50% la transportul în comun vor beneficia elevii din  învăţământul  preuniversitar autorizat/ acreditat, cu domiciliul/ reşedinţa în municipiul Iaşi, pe tot parcursul anului calendaristic, dar şi studenţii înmatriculaţi la forma de învăţământ cu frecvenţă, în instituţiile de învăţământ superior acreditate, în vârstă de până la 26 de ani, cu domiciliul/ reşedinţa în municipiul Iaşi, pe timpul anului universitar

Încă din luna martie 2016, Consiliul Local Iaşi a emis o hotărâre prin care aprobă reducerea cu 50% din tarifele integrale la transportul public pentru elevii din învăţământul obligatoriu, profesional şi liceal de stat sau particular, dar şi pentru studenţii de până la 26 de ani din instituţiile de învăţământ superior acreditate. Ulterior, în mai 2018, au fost aprobate tarifele tichetelor de călătorie cu preţ redus, printre acestea regăsindu-se abonamentul unic 2 zone valabil 30 de zile – tarif 55 lei (40 lei suportaţi de UAT Iaşi şi 15 lei suportaţi de UAT-ul de pe raza zonei 2). În condiţiile în care primăriile de pe raza zonei doi nu au emis hotărâri de Consiliu Local prin care să susţină financiar tichetele de călătorie cu preţ redus pentru elevi şi studenţi, cele două hotărâri amintite vor fi modificate. Astfel, de reducerea de 50% la transportul în comun vor beneficia elevii din  învăţământul  preuniversitar autorizat/acreditat, cu domiciliul/ reşedinţa în municipiul Iaşi, pe tot parcursul anului calendaristic, dar şi studenţii înmatriculaţi la forma de învăţământ cu frecvenţă, în instituţiile de învăţământ superior acreditate, în vârstă de până la 26 de ani, cu domiciliul/ reşedinţa în municipiul Iaşi, pe timpul anului universitar.

Patru UAT-uri nu sunt interesate de subvenţionarea transportului elevilor

Cât priveşte HCL nr. 231/2018 referitoare la tichetele de călătorie cu preţ redus pentru elevi şi studenţi, aceasta va suporta următoarea modificare: abonament unic 2 zone – 30 zile, tarif redus 70,00 lei (din tariful integral de 110,00 lei, UAT Iaşi suportă 40 lei). Implicit, se modifică şi tariful abonamentul unic 2 zone valabil şapte zile, care, în loc de 15 lei, va costa 30 lei (10 lei suportaţi de UAT Iaşi). „Beneficiarii vor suporta aceste costuri până când UAT-urile din zonele 2 vor adopta Hotărâri de Consiliu prin care vor susţine financiar tichetele de călătorie cu preţ redus pentru elevi şi studenţi. Tichetele de călătorie cu preţ redus, pentru elevi şi studenţi, pentru zona 2, respectiv abonamentul unic zona 2 –30 zile şi abonamentul unic zona 2 -7 zile, vor fi puse în vânzare de către Compania de Transport Public S.A. Iaşi din momentul când UAT-urile din zonele 2 vor adopta Hotărâri de Consiliu prin care vor susţine financiar tichetele de călătorie cu preţ redus, pentru elevi şi studenţi”, se arată în nota de fundamentare a proiectului. UAT-urile din zona 2 vor fi notificate despre aceste modificări.

Traseele de transport public care depăşesc raza teritorială a muncipiului Iaşi sunt 27, 41 şi 44 (Ciurea), 29 (Tomeşti), 20 şi 30b (Valea Lupului şi Miroslava).

Publicație : Evenimentul

 

Racism in universities is a systemic problem, not a series of incidents

Racial harassment, from open abuse to more passive mistreatment, is so commonplace in UK universities that for black staff members such as myself, it feels like something we just have to get used to. With the publication of the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s new report, we now have evidence to prove that racism is grossly under-acknowledged in universities. The figures show that, somehow, 43% and 56 % of universities thought that every incident of racial harassment against students and staff was reported. In reality less than half of staff said they had reported their experiences.

I have been in universities for almost two decades and cannot think of anything they are worse at handling than racism. I have experienced multiple episodes of racial harassment as both student and staff member. I never reported any of these because I had no idea how I would have gone about it, and even if I did would have had no faith in the university to take my experiences seriously. Perhaps, now we have some numbers, the report will be an impetus for change.

Despite this, I remain sceptical: the report is no panacea. It has failed to condemn universities for institutional racism by connecting incidents of racial harassment to the myriad of other symptoms of racism including the attainment gap, higher dropout rates, an ethnicity pay gap, and a lack of black professors. We cannot understand any of these isolation. The report also describes racism in an overly simplistic way: as the product of backwards individuals who hurl abuse to those who are not white, rather than existing in many, far subtler forms.

This is evidenced in the way the report reveals that 9% of white students have felt victims of racial harassment, for instance through “anti-English sentiment”. This minimises the significance of racism by reducing it to individual encounters. It is an insult to those who have experienced racial harassment rooted in deep seated prejudice and enabled by institutional racism to view this as comparable. Considering that the EHRC ignored direct appeals from the National Union of Students to exclude “anti-white” prejudice, its inclusion is a dereliction of duty.

Bodies like the EHRC exist because of struggles by victims of racism for recognition, representation and respect. My mum worked for decades for the forerunners to the EHRC and I can only imagine her pain to see the legacy of that work so cruelly distorted. The fact that the authors ever thought such a definition of racial harassment was appropriate shows just how out of touch and unfit for purpose the race relations industry has become.

According to the report, the solution to long-standing institutional racism in universities is more legislation and better enforcement. Yet Britain already has some of the most progressive race relations legislation in the world: the Equality Act of 2010 put the burden on institutions not only to avoid committing racist acts, but to proactively ensure that their practice is anti-racist. Sadly, the raft of research from across the higher education, along with other sectors, shows that this has had no meaningful impact on racial equality. Racism is not a collection of individual acts, but rather a systemic problem, and therefore no amount of legislation that attempts to deal with supposed bad apples can ever address the problem.

To combat racism in universities, as in other institutions, we need to stop focusing on individual incidents of racial harassment and fundamentally overhaul the structures that perpetuate it. The EHRC provides an opportunity to talk about experiences that have long gone ignored but does so in a framework that only adds insult to injury, missing an opportunity to drive forward this conversation. This will not come as a surprise to the ethnic minority staff and students who continue to push for meaningful change.

Publicație: The Guardian

University racism study criticised for including anti-white harassment

Academics and student leaders accuse equalities watchdog of drawing a false equivalence

Prominent academics and student leaders have criticised the government’s equalities watchdog for including prejudice against white British students in its inquiry into racism in UK universities.

They accused the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) of drawing a false equivalence between what it described as racial harassment against white British students and staff and the racism suffered by their black and minority ethnic peers.

According to the watchdog’s student survey, 9% of white British students experienced racial harassment, compared with 29% of black students and 27% of Asian students.

The report, Tackling Racial Harassment: Universities Challenged, highlighted examples of anti-English sentiment at Scottish and Welsh universities.

A white English member of staff told the inquiry that two Welsh colleagues used a slur when referring to English people: “She was speaking in English and changed to Welsh for that word thinking I wouldn’t understand. I’ve never come across so much racism as when I moved to Wales.”

Heidi Mirza, a visiting professor of race, faith and culture at Goldsmiths, University of London, said the EHRC’s inclusion of anti-British sentiment watered down the impact of racism on people of colour.

“Anti-black, anti-Asian and Islamophobic and antisemitic racism is on a different scale to the anti-English sentiment,” she said. “The experience that the Scottish and the Welsh students might experience will not equate to what skin colour and visible difference means to students on campus.”

Fope Olaleye, the black students’ officer at the National Union of Students, said the EHRC had ignored pleas made at a roundtable event with the inquiry team earlier this year to exclude anti-white harassment from their report.

She tweeted: “I remember sitting at one of the round tables and a bunch of students and myself had to explain in excruciatingly detail that ‘anti-white prejudice’ should have no place in a report on racial harassment but I see we were not listened to.”

She later added: “There was a definite tension with the students in the room who were concerned by how they were defining racism in the report and many of us pressed and challenged it.”

Gargi Bhattacharyya, professor of sociology at the University of East London, said similar concerns had been raised with the EHRC by the University College Union’s black member’s standing committee.

She tweeted: “We had a similar awkward convo with them. And sent written notes to remind them of our concerns on this issue.”

An EHRC spokeswoman said its report made clear that racial harassment predominantly affects black and Asian students.

She added: “We received a small number of examples of anti-English sentiment at Scottish and Welsh universities, offensive comments about Gypsy and Irish Traveller students and examples of anti-Semitic slurs for both staff and students. To ignore these issues raised with us would have been wrong. Our recommendations are designed to ensure that universities can appropriately address and tackle racial harassment in all of its forms.”

Publicație: The Guardian

Universities must stop covering up racism in order to protect their own reputations

The time has come for universities to reimagine themselves as inclusive institutions and tackle racism properly

The extent of racism in UK universities has been yet again exposed by a new Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) report. But while statistics like the fact that more than a quarter of minority ethnic students have faced both physical and verbal racist attacks are shocking, they’re not new. Last year the Student Room found that one in two students had witnessed or faced racism on campus, while a National Union of Students (NUS) report said that incidents of racism made students of colour want to discontinue their education.

I have heard anecdotes such as these firsthand. When the EHRC enquiry was launched I was serving as black students’ officer at the NUS, where I was regularly contacted by students of colour to support them with the racism they were experiencing on and off campus. Some of these stories made it into the news, with stories of leaked Facebook and WhatsApp chats, pictures of socials, and videos in halls going viral.

These stories and statistics can no longer be waved away as an aberration or minor part of some people’s experiences. For students of colour, racism is a constant in their lives. It is woven into every part of their so-called “student experience”, from being freshers to finding employment. For black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) staff, the challenge of getting a job in a university is surpassed only by the difficulty in getting promoted in a profession in which only 0.6% of UK professors are black. Although some universities have begun to make progress on these issues, often by using the Race Equality Charter framework, too many are sitting idly by and failing students and staff.

The problem is that racism and other forms of oppression are not something institutions want to readily admit exist, let alone begin the difficult work of rectifying. The marketisation of higher education has led to universities shifting focus from teaching and learning to protecting their reputations for fear of dropping in the league tables and losing out on students. In such a system, how can we expect universities to address racism, when the threat of bankruptcy looms with every low student intake? Meanwhile universities that are successful enough to expand are incentivised to increase their surplus, rather than looking after their students by increasing student support services or grants to the students’ union.

The focus on protecting the reputation of the institution was a theme of the EHRC report. One student said their university “was more bothered about covering the incident up to maintain a ‘spotless’ reputation than it was about tackling racism”. Universities have begun to fear that talking openly about racism will deter potential applicants, but an honest conversation about race in our universities is desperately needed. This has been called for by students, staff and academics for decades, but has gained momentum over the past few years with the Why is my curriculum white? and decolonising movements enabling people to articulate their visions of a fairer campus.

For far too long universities have been exempt from public criticism thanks to their perception as elevated spaces of knowledge; places where liberalism and tolerance rule and which have meritocracy at their very heart. But studies like the EHRC report or research by the NUS black students’ campaign have begun to tear down this myth.

Yet for many, this myth never existed. Their experience at university isn’t discussing lofty ideas in dreaming spires. It’s being stopped by security; being asked to represent your “people” in a seminar; watching your junior colleagues getting promoted above you; being fearful of being referred to the home office at every student demonstration you attend; hearing lecturers use the “n” word; not using your “ethnic” name when applying for graduate schemes and fearing the prevent duty.

The truth is that from a historical perspective, universities have never been meritocratic or liberal. Many were created with the sole purpose of enabling people of wealth and prestige to accumulate further wealth and prestige. Their legacy includes training the next generation of people to run the British empire, funding from slavery and intellectualising eugenics to justify the racism on which the empire was built.

The writing is once again on the wall, and universities have a choice to make. They can continue to resist calls to change by hiding behind their reputations. Or we can finally see the tearing down of the myth of the liberal, tolerant institution and the creation of a progressive, democratic alternative.

Publicație: The Guardian

Universities failing to address thousands of racist incidents

 Institutions are in denial about the scale of the problem, warns government equality watchdog

Universities are failing to address tens of thousands of racist incidents every year because they are in denial about the scale of the problem, the government’s equality watchdog has warned.

An inquiry by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) found that about a quarter of minority ethnic students, including non-British white students, said they had experienced racial harassment since the start of their course.

Of those, black students reported the highest rate of racial harassment (29%), followed by Asian students (27%) and mixed/other students (22%). Meanwhile, 9% of white British students said they experienced racial harassment, including anti-English, anti-Welsh and anti-Scottish sentiments.

The report, Tackling Racial Harassment: Universities Challenged, also found 8% of all students surveyed suffered racial harassment in the first six months of the last academic year, which amounted to about 180,000 students across the UK.

A third of those said they reported racist incidents to their university, the equivalent of 60,000 students nationwide. Yet a separate survey of 141 universities by the body found only 920 formal complaints of racism by students and staff recorded between September 2015 and February 2019. Of these, 560 were made by students, equivalent to only about 80 complaints every six months.

Rebecca Hilsenrath, chief executive at the EHRC, said the findings showed universities were “not only out of touch with the extent that [racism] is occurring on their campuses, some are also completely oblivious to the issue”.

Professor Julia Buckingham, president of Universities UK, which represents 136 universities, described the findings as “sad and shocking”, and called on vice-chancellors to publicly commit to making tackling racial harassment a top priority.

But prominent academics of colour have condemned the commission for also including harassment against white students in the figures, which they said showed a worrying lack of understanding of racism.

Kehinde Andrews, professor of black studies at Birmingham City University, said: “The idea that you could equate the racism experienced by someone who is black, with the experience of a Welsh [person] at an English university demonstrates just how ignorant the authors of the report are. [The report] conflates racism with individual harassment and entirely minimises the racism by including groups who do not experience racial prejudice.”

Ilyas Nagdee, former black students officer at the National Union of Students, praised the report for highlighting the scale of racism at universities. But he added that its attempt to equate anti-white harassment with racism did “injustice to the daily realities of students and staff of colour”.

Dr Nicola Rollock, who has written a report about the barriers facing black female academics in the UK, said the EHRC’s inclusion of anti-white harassment “will only serve to confuse universities who already struggle to understand and address racism against black and Asian groups”.

But she added this should not detract from the report’s main findings that showed universities were overconfident about addressing racism and that black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) students and staff suffer in a hostile environment.

The EHRC found that two-thirds of students and more than half of staff did not report racial harassment to their university, often because they had no confidence that the matter would be addressed. Others were deterred due to fears of reprisals by their tutors or managers.

Yet almost half (43%) of universities told the inquiry they thought all racial harassment against students on their campus was reported.

The inquiry found that almost two-thirds of students who reported being racially harassed said the abuse came from other students, with more than a quarter saying the abuse came from academics. Most staff who said they were racially abused said the perpetrator was a colleague, often the victim’s manager.

A fifth of students who were racially harassed said they had suffered physical assaults. More than half of them said they had suffered racial slurs and insults, including the N-word and the P-word, from other students and from lecturers.

Other commonly experienced forms of racism included micro-aggressions, such as dismissive and stereotyping comments, and being ostracised.

The report called on the government to introduce a mandatory duty on universities to take reasonable steps to protect staff from harassment.

It also recommended that universities improve their handling of complaints, ensuring investigations were led by staff trained in understanding racial harassment. If universities failed to take action, they should also be made legally liable for student-on-student harassment.

Nicola Dandridge, chief executive of the Office for Students – the independent regulator of higher education in England – described the EHRC’s findings as “deeply troubling”.

She said: “It is a particular concern that many students do not feel confident in reporting incidents of racial harassment and have low confidence in their complaints being dealt with. That almost half of universities believe that every incident of racial harassment against their students was reported indicates a worrying complacency.”

A Department for Education spokeswoman said: “Racial harassment is unacceptable and we cannot tolerate staff and students being victims of it at our world-leading universities. We expect institutions to take their responsibilities under the Equality Act extremely seriously and have robust procedures in place to respond to incidents.”

’I was told I was overreacting’

A black female student in her final year at a Russell Group university said her experience of racism during her degree had been all-encompassing.

She said it ranged from “a lack of diversity in my lectures – I have never had a lecturer of colour – to being called the N-word in the street, and students dressing up in blackface and not being adequately reprimanded for it”.

During her year studying abroad in Spain, she made a complaint about a lecturer who was making racist comments in class. When the Spanish university did not deal with it, she took the matter up with her UK university.

“They quickly brushed off my complaint as a cultural difference,” she said. “I was essentially told that I was overreacting and to not take the complaint any further or to leave the placement.

“This was extremely upsetting – a raw example of how badly they are at dealing with racism. In my time of need I expected them to back me up, and they didn’t. I have lost all trust in them.”

The student added that the lack of minority ethnic lecturers in her department was a symptom of institutional racism at the university.

“There is no person of colour in a senior level position,” she said: “I think this is why when I called out racism they tried to silence me, as there is really no one with the same lived experience as me.”

Publicație: The Guardian

University racism inquiry criticised for including anti-white abuse

‘Institutions are living in the past and have failed to learn from history,’ watchdog warns

The equality watchdog has come under fire for including anti-white abuse in its inquiry into racial harassment across UK universities.

Academics and student leaders have criticised the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) for featuring examples of harassment against white students and staff in their report on racism.

The inquiry found that nearly a quarter (24 per cent) of ethnic minority students experienced racial harassment at a UK university since starting their course, compared to 9 per cent of white students.

The report – which criticised universities for being “oblivious” to the racial harassment occurring at an “alarmingly high rate” on their campuses – also highlighted examples of anti-English sentiment.

White English students and staff in Scottish and Welsh universities had experienced abuse, the inquiry found. One white English member of staff said Welsh colleagues had called him a negative slur for English people.

Fope Olaleye, the black students’ officer at the National Union of Students (NUS), claimed that the EHRC had ignored pleas for anti-white harassment to be excluded from their report.

She tweeted: “I remember sitting at one of the round tables and a bunch of students and myself had to explain in excruciating detail that ‘anti-white prejudice’ should have no place in a report on racial harassment but I see we were not listened to.”

Speaking to The Independent, she said: “By conflating xenophobia, Anti-English sentiment and prejudice alongside the racism faced by students of colour in the EHRC report, it has done a disservice to the work currently being done on race equity in the UK.”

Priyamvada Gopal, a reader in the faculty of English at Cambridge University, accused the EHRC of placing anti-English sentiment on par with black students’ experiences in white-majority institutions, adding that the report was “dangerous”.

Helen Carr, head of equality at the University and College Union, said: “It’s unfortunate that the report’s inclusion of harassment against white people risks distracting attention from the high levels of racism experienced by BME staff and students.

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“To ensure we can tackle these issues effectively, it’s important that harassment linked to nationality or immigration status as opposed to ethnicity is explicitly recognised as such.”

The inquiry, based on a survey of 1,000 students and interviews with staff, comes after a series of high-profile racist incidents have taken place on UK campuses in recent years.

Black students’ experiences have been in the spotlight – with racist chants in student halls and a banana being thrown at a black graduate hitting the headlines.

An investigation by The Independent revealed that the number of racist incidents in universities across the UK surged by more than 60 per cent between 2015 and 2017.

In recent weeks, a University of Leicester student was reported to be pictured wearing a white T-shirt with the hand-written slogan “Hitler wanted my kind alive” during a social event.

Students at the University of Southampton were also filmed chanting racist songs on a bus during a football social, according to student news reports.

The report from the EHRC suggests up to two-thirds of students did not report racist harassment to their university as some had no confidence the incident would be addressed.

Some universities are reluctant to admit the prevalence of racial harassment on campus for fear of reputational damage or putting off potential students, it adds.

Rebecca Hilsenrath, chief executive of EHRC, said: “It is considerably disappointing to discover that, instead of being progressive and forward-thinking, [universities] are living in the past and have failed to learn from history. No one should ever be subjected to racial harassment in any setting.

“Our report reveals that not only are universities out of touch with the extent that this is occurring on their campuses, some are also completely oblivious to the issue. This isn’t good enough.”

The watchdog is calling on the universities to ensure that students and staff are able to report harassment and that their complaints procedures are fit for purpose.

Earlier this month, a report from Universities UK (UUK) said institutions have been prioritising sexual harassment and gender-based violence but less status has been given to race-based incidents.

At the time, Professor Julia Buckingham, president of UUK, called on university leaders to take “urgent action” over the issues and make it a “top priority”.

She said: “There is no place for racial harassment on a university campus, or anywhere else – and I find it sad and shocking how many people are still subject to it. Universities must be places where all students and staff are able to flourish and we must intensify our work to ensure this happens.”

On the criticism of the inclusion of anti-white abuse, a spokesperson from the EHRC said: “We have used the definition of race under the Equality Act which includes race, ethnicity and nationality. Our report is very clear that racial harassment predominantly impacts Black and Asian students.

“We received a small number of examples of anti-English sentiment at Scottish and Welsh universities, offensive comments about Gypsy and Irish Traveller students and examples of antisemitic slurs for both staff and students. To ignore these issues raised with us would have been wrong.

“While this is not a form of harassment widely reported to us during the inquiry, there is no place for racial harassment anywhere in society and universities must have systems in place to ensure that everyone can reach their full potential through education. Our recommendations are designed to ensure that universities can appropriately address and tackle racial harassment in all of its forms.”

Publicație: The Independent

Il Patto per la ricerca di Fioramonti: „Così avvicineremo università e industrie”

Dieci le richieste alle imprese. Tra queste, „il 3 per cento degli utili deve andare in innovazione, metà degli investimenti devono essere nella sostenibilità”. In cambio meno tasse per chi fa studi avanzati e i privati nella futura Agenzia nazionale. Il ministro: „Sono preoccupato perché le risorse per scuola e università sembrano poche”

ROMA – Ha chiesto alle imprese italiane di sottoscrivere un Patto per la ricerca, il ministro dell’Università e della Ricerca. Questa mattina Lorenzo Fioramonti ha invitato tutti i presenti – i responsabili dell’innovazione di Eni ed Enel, Terna e Leonardo, i presidenti di Poste e Ferrovie dello Stato, il presidente della Conferenza dei rettori – ad avvicinare l’industria all’università italiana, a far crescere l’investimento privato in ricerca fino alla quota minima del 3 per cento rispetto agli utili prodotti. Non ha potuto dare garanzie, tuttavia, proprio sul fronte pubblico: “Sono personalmente preoccupato perché le risorse per la scuola, l’università e la ricerca nella prossima Legge di bilancio sembrano essere poche. Sono molto lontane da quello che era stato l’obiettivo iniziale”.

Fioramonti aveva preparato questo incontro-seminario per un anno, nel periodo in cui era viceministro con delega all’Università di un ministro nemico. Ora – in questa mattina al Miur – ha declinato i dieci punti attraverso i quali proverà “a rafforzare la collaborazione tra Università, Alta formazione artistica, musicale e coreutica, Enti pubblici di ricerca e imprese per rilanciare l’economia italiana in chiave sostenibile”.

“Rischiamo il declino”

Ha detto Fioramonti in apertura: “La politica economica degli ultimi trent’anni in Italia non ha saputo cogliere l’importanza della ricerca, pubblica e privata, come volano d’innovazione e sviluppo, nonostante i rapporti di istituzioni internazionali e della Commissione europea. Questo ha contribuito a rendere il Paese meno resiliente di fronte alle sfide contemporanee, dalle mutazioni economiche a quelle tecnologiche, dai cambiamenti climatici alla riconversione industriale in chiave sostenibile condannando l’Italia a una serie di stagnazioni e recessioni con la prospettiva sempre più concreta che s’inneschi un percorso di declino”.

Troppi nostri ricercatori talentuosi, “che avrebbero potuto creare nuove imprese in tutti gli ambiti del sistema produttivo, in particolare nei settori altamente tecnologici”, sono stati costretti a lasciare l’Italia per approdare in Paesi dove il sistema politico e il tessuto imprenditoriale sono più attenti all’innovazione. Dal 2007 le risorse in ricerca nel nostro Paese sono scese di oltre 20 punti percentuali: oggi fra settore pubblico e privato si investono 23,4 miliardi di euro sulla questione (dato 2017), meno dell’1,4 per cento del Pil. “Siamo ancora lontani dal modesto traguardo che il Paese si è dato per il 2020, ovvero l’1,53 per cento, lontanissimi dalla media europea del 2 per cento e dall’Obiettivo di Lisbona, recentemente rilanciato dall’Unione europea e dall’Ocse, del 3 per cento. Se i prossimi decenni vedranno sempre di più il passaggio da un modello industriale pesante a un modello industriale pensante, “la ricerca pubblica e privata devono diventare il centro di una nuova politica industriale ed economica ancorata ai principi dello sviluppo sostenibile”.

I dieci impegni che Fioramonti chiede alle imprese, piccole, medie e grandi, sono investimenti in ricerca e sviluppo che consentano di arrivare a un minimo del 3 per cento degli utili, “a fronte di normative incentivanti, come il credito d’imposta per ricerca e formazione”. Le grandi imprese si devono impegnare a sostenere – in collaborazione con il settore pubblico – “la creazione di fondi di venture capital per stimolare start-up e iniziative ad alto potenziale innovativo puntando anche sull’attrazione di fondi dall’estero”. Già il Piano Calenda Industria 4.0 prevedeva una forte defiscalizzazione per l’acquisto di macchinari, ora il contributo di Stato si sposta sulle “risorse umane”.

“Non esiste profitto senza sostenibilità”, dice Fioramonti. Quindi, “le imprese si impegnano a dedicare almeno il 50 per cento degli investimenti in ricerca e formazione a questo tema per migliorare costantemente la loro offerta di prodotti e servizi”. Il ministro chiede, quindi, co-produzioni con università, istituzioni Afam ed enti di ricerca: “Il modello tradizionale di trasferimento tecnologico lineare, dal mondo della ricerca a quello delle imprese, è da tempo superato. La ricerca non è un’esclusiva degli atenei, ma deve assumere sempre più i connotati di un processo trasversale all’interno della società”. Tutto questo, a fronte di interventi normativi che incentivino la terza missione, ovvero il ruolo sociale del sistema universitario, e la brevettazione, semplifichino le procedure amministrative, in particolare per quanto riguarda la proprietà intellettuale, e diano alle piccole e medie imprese accesso a strutture pubbliche di ricerca e a laboratori.

Cinque ricercatori ogni mille occupati

L’Italia soffre di una domanda di lavoro poco qualificata. Abbiamo poco più di 5 ricercatori (laureati o dottorati) ogni mille occupati, contro i 10 di Giappone e Stati Uniti e i 15 della Corea. “Le imprese si devono impegnare ad aumentare la percentuale di lavoratori con alta qualificazione, soprattutto dottori di ricerca, per una trasformazione strutturale della propria forza lavoro”.

Per spingere Il Made in Italy, lo Stato si impegna a favorire l’aggregazione delle università in poli, insieme a partner industriali di primaria importanza, in modo da sviluppare modelli di ricerca applicata e di orientamento per i giovani imprenditori. Il ministro propone, quindi, “politiche aggressive” per favorire il rientro in Italia di lavoratori con alte competenze e chiede al mondo imprenditoriale la creazione di reti di collegamento fra i ricercatori e gli imprenditori italiani residenti all’estero, “perché il Paese possa beneficiare delle loro esperienze e dei loro successi”.

Nascerà l’Agenzia nazionale per la ricerca e l’innovazione, e sarà partecipata dalle imprese italiane: “Una struttura nazionale di coordinamento della ricerca, sul modello del coordinamento dei Research Council britannici e delle Agenzie per l’innovazione israeliane” che avrà il compito di finanziare brevetti e co-produzione tra pubblico e privato, oltre al più tradizionale trasferimento tecnologico. Questa struttura potrebbe diventare la guida tecnica della politica di ricerca e innovazione del Paese.

Publicație: La Repubblica