"Viitorul sistemului judiciar al Uniunii Europene", DEZBATERE de amploare la Universitatea "Cuza" din Iasi
Universitatea "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" - UAIC din Iasi, în parteneriat cu Ministerul Afacerilor Externe - MAE, prin Agentul Guvernamental pentru Curtea de Justitie a Uniunii Europene - UE, organizeaza Conferinta "Viitorul sistemului judiciar al Uniunii Europene"
Universitatea "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" (UAIC) din Iasi, în parteneriat cu Ministerul Afacerilor Externe (MAE), prin Agentul Guvernamental pentru Curtea de Justitie a Uniunii Europene (UE), organizeaza Conferinta "Viitorul sistemului judiciar al Uniunii Europene".
Evenimentul va avea loc la Iasi, la Universitatea "Cuza", pana maine, 1 iunie 2019. "Ne dorim ca acest eveniment sa fie o oportunitate pentru practicienii si teoreticienii dreptului Uniunii Europene, de a face un schimb valoros de idei, pornind de la temele de actualitate din jurisprudenta Curtii", au transmis organizatorii.
De precizat ca este vorba de o premiera pentru orasul Iasi, dar si la nivel national academic, ca la o asemenea manifestare educationala academica, sa fie prezente asemenea personalitati europene.
"La conferinta vor participa Presedintele Curtii de Justitie a Uniunii Europene, Presedintele Tribunalului Uniunii Europene, judecatori ai Curtii si ai Tribunalului, reprezentanti ai institutiilor europene si nationale, ai mediului academic si avocati. E un moment de amploare si de anvergura", a transmis si prof. univ. dr. Tudorel Toader, rectorul UAIC.
Publicație: Bună Ziua Iași
Profesorul în era digitală - importantă conferinţă naţională ieri şi azi, pe teme educaţionale, la BCU
Conferinţa Naţională „Educaţia Azi“, eveniment care are drept temă modalitatea de formare a profesorilor în era digitală, a avut loc ieri, la Iaşi, la discuţii participând atât cadre didactice din învăţământul preuniversitar, dar şi profesori din mediul universitar din Iaşi, Bucureşti, Cluj şi Timişoara.
Manifestările au fost organizate de Departamentul pentru Pregătirea Personalului Didactic de la Facultatea de Psihologie şi Ştiinţe ale Educaţiei din cadrul Universităţii „Alexandru Ioan Cuza“ din Iaşi şi Inspectoratul Şcolar Judeţean Iaşi, în parteneriat cu Universitatea din Bucureşti, Universitatea „Babeş-Bolyai“ Cluj-Napoca şi Universitatea de Vest din Timişoara.Conferinţa se află la cea de-a V-a ediţie, la Iaşi fiind organizată pentru prima dată. Conferinţa este inclusă în cadrul Festivalului Internaţional al Educaţiei, partenerii manifestării fiind Primăria Municipiului Iaşi şi Asociaţia Studenţilor Psihologi şi Pedagogi Iaşi.
Deschiderea oficială a conferinţei a avut loc la ora 9.30, în Aula Bibliotecii Centrale Universitare „Mihai Eminescu“, la evenimentul de deschidere participând Constantin Cucoş, directorul Departamentul pentru Pregătirea Personalului Didactic, dar şi Genoveva Farcaş, inspector şcolar general al ISJ Iaşi. Pe parcursul celor două zile ale manifestării sunt prezentate lucrări diverse pe tema formării competenţelor cadrelor didactice în contextul actual. La finalul conferinţei se va elabora o rezoluţie care să recomande perspective de regândire sau îmbunătăţire a formulelor de pregătire a profesorilor. Astăzi au loc două workshop-uri pe temele „Formarea iniţială a cadrelor didactice - între posibilitate şi deziderat „şi „Coaching-ul educaţional“.
Publicație : Ziarul de Iași
Fostul ministru al Culturii a plagiat în teza de doctorat. S-a cerut Ministerului retragerea titlului de doctor
Fostul ministru al Culturii, Ionuţ Vulpescu, şi-a plagiat teza de doctorat, plagiatul fiind constatat de Universitatea din Bucureşti.
Ionuţ Vulpescu a plagiat în teza sa de doctorat, iar rectorul Universităţii din Bucureşti, Mircea Dumitru, a cerut Ministerului Educaţiei să îi retragă titlul de doctor, spun sursele Edupedu.ro. Decizia vine după ce Universitatea a fost sesizată cu privire la plagiat de către lectorul Cătălin Cioabă, conform edupedu.ro.
Ionuţ Vulpescu a susţinut în noiembrie 2008, la Facultatea de Filosofie a Universităţii din Bucureşti, teza de doctorat intitulată “Etica între teologie şi filosofie. Analiză comparativă asupra valorii morale a muncii în ethosul creştin“. Vulpescu l-a avut coordonator de doctorat pe profesorul Vasile Morar.
Lectorul universitar Cătălin Cioabă a scris în urmă cu două luni, pe Contributors, că teza de doctorat a lui Ioan Vulpescu “conţine o cantitate considerabilă de text preluat fără indicarea sursei”. Teza “Etica între teologie şi filozofie. Analiză comparativă asupra valorii morale a muncii în ethosul creştin” are “elemente indubitabile de plagiat”, scria Cioabă, care a sesizat Facultatea de Filosofie a Universităţii din Bucureşti cu privire la acest plagiat.
Potrivit cercetătorului, este vorba despre pasaje luate copy-paste “de pe internet, din articole de specialitate sau chiar din articole de presă”. Cioabă a relatat pe Contributors că a identificat în teza fostului ministru pasaje “preluate din Wikipedia, Jurnalul naţional, portalul Crestinismortodox.ro, sau chiar referate online de pe pagini precum „Regielive””.
Ionuţ Vulpescu este senator PSD şi a fost deputat al aceluiaşi partid, în 2012-2016. A fost ministru al Culturii în 2014-2015, în guvernul Ponta, precum şi în 2017 în Guvernul Tudose. Vulpescu a absolvit Facultatea de Teologie Ortodoxă din Bucureşti şi şi-a obţinut doctoratul la Facultatea de Filosofie a Universităţii din Bucureşti.
Publicație : Adevărul
Universities hit back after report proposing funding cuts
Leaders say shift towards vocational training would leave universities struggling
University leaders said their sector could be pushed into “survival mode” if the funding cuts proposed by a new report into student financing become government policy.
The Augar report on post-18 education in England, commissioned by Theresa May, recommended a shift in funding away from universities towards further education (FE) and vocational training, with the report sharply criticising universities for offering too many “low value” courses.
The report seeks to make degrees less attractive by increasing student loan repayments by low- and middle-income graduates. It recommends loan repayments starting at a lower salary level and their timeframe being extended from 30 years to 40 years.
The report also recommends that the government cut undergraduate tuition fees – from £9,250 to £7,500 – and use replacement funding “more effectively targeted on cost of provision and characteristics of students” – rewarding institutions whose students go on to high-paying graduate jobs. But the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) estimates that only the wealthiest students would pay less from the combined changes to tuition fees and repayments.
Adam Tickell, vice-chancellor of the University of Sussex, warned that cuts to tuition fees would leave institutions with less to spend on teaching and student support.
“Many students would actually end up paying more for their education, because they would be repaying over 40 years rather than 30, but universities would potentially have £2bn less to invest in teaching, mental-health support, and infrastructure,” Tickell said.
“This would be a cut in government spending on higher education masquerading as a gift to students, when in fact very few would benefit and the vast majority would have a poorer educational experience.
“It would push many universities into survival mode at a time when the country critically needs them to thrive.”
Vanessa Wilson, chief executive of the University Alliance group that includes the Open University, said: “This is a serious, detailed report but we have real doubts that the money, legislative space or political impetus is there. Theresa May’s review risks being dead on arrival.”
The funding changes were also criticised by Jo Johnson, the former universities minister, who said they would “destabilise” university finances, reverse progress on widening participation and mainly benefit higher earning graduates. “Bad policy, bad politics,” Johnson tweeted.
Researchers at the IFS said the proposals would lead to a more regressive funding system for students.
“The highest earning graduates [will benefit] the most from the proposed changes, while lower and middle earning graduates will be squeezed,” said Jack Britton, senior research economist at the IFS.
The improved support for FE colleges was welcomed by both the TUC and the CBI, with further education having suffered from a decade of underinvestment, including a 25% fall in FE student funding since 2010.
The report – by a panel chaired by former financier Philip Augar – proposed that students taking higher national certificates and diplomas would see loan funding similar to those as students at universities, with an aim of significantly increasing their popularity.
Nick Hillman, head of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said it was clear the report’s authors wanted to shift students from undergraduate courses to diploma or certificate courses, to match employers’ needs.
“Personally, I am a little sceptical that a high proportion of school leavers will switch their sights from three-year offerings to two-year offerings because the lure of the traditional university experience is very strong,” Hillman said.
Any cut in tuition fees would also have a substantial impact on the finances of universities in Scotland and Wales. Around 22,000 students from England currently attend Scottish universities, paying £9,250 while local students pay no fees.
Alastair Sim, director of Universities Scotland, said the income from English tuition fees were “an important part of the funding mix” for Scottish universities.
“We want to see the UK government take the time to carefully consider its responsibilities to students and universities across the whole of the UK, as well as those based in England,” Sim said.
Publicație : The Guardian
Augar review: lower fees could come at a high cost
The risk is high that a future government will not replace lost fee funding with the investment universities need, says Bill Rammell
This week, Theresa May set out an ambition to lower university tuition fees. This announcement could easily be seen as a promise to reduce the cost of going to university and make higher education more accessible. However, for many future students this simply could not be further from the truth.
The headline proposal to reduce tuition fees hides a much more concerning suggestion to raise the costs of higher education for many graduates and to restrict student numbers. These proposals, set out by the panel led by Philip Augar, do not yet represent government policy and may never come to fruition. However, their potential consequences are worrying and must be thoroughly and properly scrutinised.
Under the proposals the prime minister refers to, student loans will no longer be written off after 30 years. Instead, many graduates will be paying off their loan for up to 40 years. This would unfairly penalise those graduates who choose to give back to society, entering professions where salary is not a driver, such as our nurses, social workers and teachers. These graduates will be forced to pay back their loans until they are well into their sixties, contributing more to the cost of their university education than they do under the current system. For anyone to suggest that extending the loan repayment period will make higher education more affordable to disadvantaged students and help social mobility is a complete con.
To make matters worse, these students will be paying more for what is likely to be a worse university experience. If tuition fees are reduced, the risk is high that income from fees will not be replaced by public grants. Higher education has been (and always will be) behind other priorities for increased state spending – schools, housing, the NHS – and understandably so. In practice, reducing tuition fees will therefore lead to universities having less to spend on student learning, support and facilities.
We owe future generations honesty regarding the consequences of lower tuition fees. Before fees, during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, universities persistently faced funding crises. By 2005, the resource for educating each student was a third of what it had been in 1965. The consequences of this were plain for all to see – dilapidated buildings, overcrowded lectures and a lack of focus on the student experience because of the relentless hand-to-mouth reality of making ends meet with ever-diminishing budgets. We risk returning to this reality if university funding is stripped away once more, damaging the immeasurable and transformative benefits of universities for students, staff and local communities.
When one delves even deeper into the details of the panel’s report, there are further worrying recommendations. These include a recommendation to remove access to student loans to fund foundation year study. The University of Bedfordshire was one of the first universities to offer an innovative foundation year. Our approach offered a popular alternative pathway into higher education, which continues to achieve very high success and progression rates. Removing funding for foundation years would be deeply regressive and a real kick in the teeth for those institutions who have been most innovative and successful in supporting students from disadvantaged backgrounds into university. And more importantly it would restrict student choice.
Decisions about the future of our world-renowned higher education system must be driven by evidence and reason, rather than politics. We do not have a huge, unaffordable debt burden for graduates. Rather we have an affordable, progressive, post-graduation repayment system, where the beneficiaries of a university education – still less than half the population – pay back a proportion of the cost of the benefit that they have received.
Instead of focussing on regressive policies that reduce university funding and restrict access to higher education, it is time for a more positive, bolder vision for the future. This vision must focus
Publicație : The Times
Augar review: reversing Cameron, Osborne and Browne’s ‘past errors’
Post-18 review highlights the chaotic nature of Westminster policymaking, writes John Morgan
One of the most striking features of the Augar panel report is that all its main recommendations are about reversing, wholly or partially, David Cameron and George Osborne-era Conservative policies. The report unwinds the trebling of university tuition fees, the slashing of further education funding, the abolition of student maintenance grants and the use of the market and student choice as the main drivers for higher education funding.
Two of those stem from the last major review of higher education funding, the 2010 Browne Review. The more analytical Augar report could be seen as directly contradicting much of the thrust of the market-oriented Browne report.
All of which tells us something about the odd way that education policy – or perhaps a lot of policy more generally – is shaped in this country.
In the conclusion to her speech at the launch event for the report, Theresa May said that “as we look ahead to the spending review and beyond, I believe the government will need to take very seriously the proposals to boost further education spending and put right the errors of the past, to restore higher education maintenance grants… and to cut tuition fees, so students pay a fairer price for their education.”
She also said that the abolition of maintenance grants – a decision made by Osborne when he was chancellor in Cameron's government – “has not worked”.
The panel report repeatedly signals another about-turn on an issue not addressed by the current prime minister in her speech: the role of the market.
The Browne review heralded the removal of all but a rump of direct grant funding, routing the vast majority of teaching funding through students and their loans. “Their choices will shape the landscape of higher education,” said the Browne report.
The Augar report directly contradicts that, stating that “competition has an important role to play in creating student choice, but, with no steer from government, the social, economic and cultural outcomes are likely to be suboptimal”.
“Post-18 education cannot be left entirely to market forces,” the Augar panel write.
They also note, rather acidly, that the “removal of number controls” – another Osborne policy – “combined with a high fee cap created the conditions for a very competitive market”. That is at the conclusion of a section which describes grade inflation, “lower entry requirements” and unconditional offers as “three aspects of academic practice that could be interpreted as being a consequence of market competition”.
The Augar report wants direct teaching funding returned as a lever to prioritise certain subjects, complaining that “undirected funding has led to an over-supply of some courses at great cost to the taxpayer and a corresponding undersupply of graduates in strategically important sectors”.
As Augar said at the launch event: “We believe government should have greater control over taxpayer support to higher education.”
All of which leaves an unflattering portrait of the Browne review: a quick and dirty fix delivering austerity measures for Cameron and Osborne that left the student finance system overloaded and in one hell of a mess.
But why are there so very many apparent “errors of the (recent) past” in further and higher education policy?
Higher education policy in England seems to turn abruptly every few years, from Labour’s introduction of tuition fees combined with direct public funding, to the Cameron-era trebling of fees and slashing of public funding, to the shifts that Augar could herald and – if a Labour government comes to power – the potential for fees to be abolished entirely.
How do other countries with respected education systems, such as Germany or the Netherlands, go about making policy? It probably involves something radical like reaching political consensus on a strategy and then following that strategy.
Such qualities have not been in evidence in recent UK education policymaking, and the manner in which the Augar review came into being does not offer any hope that they will flourish in the near future.
May announced the review because she was in a bit of a panic about the perceived electoral impact of Labour’s policy to abolish fees, so needed her own fix on fees. Or, if you believe former education secretary Justine Greening’s account, May was alarmed by the Department for Education’s plan to look at abolishing fees and introducing a graduate tax, so railroaded through her own review to squash that plan.
The trouble now is that the Augar review comes into being just as its creator is about to leave the political stage, leaving huge questions over whether the key recommendations will ever come to be implemented. What a strange way to go about shaping policy on such a crucial matter for the nation’s future.
Augar stressed at the launch that the main focus of the panel’s report was in the call for a “refunded, reformed” further education sector, for more investment in the further education colleges that are “neglected national assets”. The report is a serious attempt to develop a strategy for a future tertiary education sector and the £7,500 fee cap (which has the look of another quick fix) should not distract attention from the philosophical shifts that it signals.
But whether the review can escape the turbulent politics of its creation remains to be seen. Political consensus around its plans for further education might be achievable, but there seems little or no prospect of a consensus on university funding. The “errors of the future” are probably just around the corner.
Publicație : The Times
Open access: Plan S launch delayed until 2021
Consultation responses had called for start of mandate to be pushed back from January 2020
Researchers and publishers have another year in which to make the transition to full open access, after the launch date for Plan S was pushed back to 2021.
Publishing revised guidance for the European-led initiative, the architects of the Science Europe-led initiative said that the need to extend the deadline from January 2020 – just six months away – had been a “recurring theme” in consultation responses from the research community.
The rules, published on 31 May, say that researchers supported by participating funding bodies must make their work freely and immediately available upon publication, from January 2021.
Three possible routes to compliance remain. Researchers may either publish their work directly through an open access journal or platform, or simultaneously through a subscription journal and open access repository.
Authors may also publish their work open access through “transformative agreements”, for instance, where institutions have signed up to read-and-publish deals under which journals move from subscription models towards open access. This model is favoured by some publishers, including Springer Nature.
The revised guidance confirms that “hybrid” journals which offer a mix of subscription and open access content were not supported, but the start of the three-year transition period allowing continued use of them has been pushed back alongside the start of the mandate, meaning that it now runs until 2024.
“The key principles [of Plan S] remain the same; we want a timely move to open access and full offsetting of costs – so you don’t pay twice for the same product,” said David Sweeney, executive chair of Research England and co-chair of the Plan S implementation task force.
The revised guidelines also emphasise the need for greater transparency around costs in academic publishing, given that funders will find themselves supporting the article processing charges associated with many forms of open access publishing.
Plan S’ architects say that, by next January, list publishing services which publishers will be expected to price – for example, peer reviewing and copy editing – certainly at company level, and ideally at journal level.
Funders “may decide to standardise and cap the reimbursement of services that they will cover through their grants”, the guidance says, and participating organisations may collectively “decide to implement caps in a coordinated way if unreasonable price levels are observed”, the guidance says.
Stephen Inchcoombe, chief publishing officer of Springer Nature, said he welcomed the amendments made, but warned “the speed at which funders and institutions fund open access and authors take up open access is simply not in the control of publishers”. The three-year transitional deadline for hybrid titles was, “potentially counterproductive”, he argued, and “could soon have a negative effect on the number of institutions willing to enter into three or four-year transformative deals”.
Also under the revised guidance, participating funders have signed up to the principles of statements such as the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment, which says that journal impact factor should not be used to judge the quality of published scholarship.
Since its launch in September 2017, 19 public and private funding agencies have signed up to Plan S – with the majority coming from Europe, including UK Research and Innovation. Other supporters include the Wellcome Trust and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The revised guidance does not apply to books or monographs, with Plan S’ proposals in this area due to be announced by the end of 2021.
Publicație : The Times
Offensive student evaluations ‘leave academics in fear’
Universities need to give staff more support about how to deal with negative comments, say researchers
Heather Carmack, associate professor in the department of communication studies at the University of Alabama, and Lea LeFebvre, assistant professor in the same department, surveyed academics across the US on their emotional responses to negative comments that they received in student evaluations.
“We found they don’t know how to make sense of them, we know we’re going to get them but we don't receive any training on how to deal with them,” Dr Carmack said. “There aren’t support structures in place to help faculty figure out how they can learn to improve their teaching from comments that are often hurtful, and sometimes racist and sexist.”
The authors initially asked participants to identify all the negative course evaluation comments that they received from students. “Around half were things such as ‘you are boring’ or ‘you are disorganised’ and you can learn from those things, but then there are some that are really offensive,” Dr Carmack said.
One respondent was told that “the class would be better if she took her top off”, while another was told the class had created a group chat where they constantly talked about how incompetent she was.
The 90 respondents listed 38.5 per cent of negative comments as initially leading to sadness, 28 per cent to anger, 23.7 per cent fear and 7.4 per cent surprise.
These led to feelings of self-doubt and “negative emotional spiralling”, the authors found. “It makes me question how I teach, whether I’m deserving of my job, and whether I will ever be able to avoid the negative comments,” one participant said, while another said they felt like they were “walking on eggshells” all the time.
This was particularly the case when course evaluations fed back into annual appraisals or promotion and tenure reviews, the study says.
The authors recommend that universities spend more time educating students on what course evaluations are for and how to provide constructive criticism. “But the next study should be: why do students feel that it’s OK to say such awful things?” Dr Carmack added.
She said that universities also need to offer more support to faculty, particularly younger members, about how to deal with negative comments. “Administrators need to have an honest conversation about them,” she said. “We say ‘brush them off’ but then we use them in their evaluation, [and] that’s a disconnect…It’s time for us to re-evaluate how we use evaluations.”
Publicație : The Times
French PhD students’ pay for teaching falls below minimum wage
Vacataire status means not only low pay, but six-month waits between wages, says the Confederation of Young Researchers
French PhD students are now paid less than the minimum wage for teaching, according to the country’s Confederation of Young Researchers (CJC), which has accused universities of treating them like Uber drivers.
The general minimum wage rises with inflation, but some PhD students are treated not as employees but vacataires: temporary teachers with a specific hourly rate of pay and exempt from the broader minimum wage, explained Quentin Rodriguez, the CJC’s president.
This year, the minimum wage has finally crossed the rate of pay for vacataires, calculated as €9.86 (£8.70) an hour by the CJC, he said.
“It’s a bit like Uber,” he said, as PhD students who teach “are considered as external, fare workers that work with the university but are not employed by universities”.
“Universities could choose to have junior researchers and teachers with a regular contract,” he said – but many choose not to, as it allows them more flexibility.
“It’s really tricky. They [PhD students] need this teaching to live and continue their PhD, and for their CVs. It’s professional experience,” he said. “But at the same time it’s precarious,” leading some to drop their studies, Mr Rodriguez said.
Aside from the rate of pay, the CJC is concerned that the vacataire arrangement means that universities only pay PhD students once a semester, rather than monthly.
Aliee Juliet, a PhD candidate in law at the University of Nantes, said that this delay in payment meant that she had to rely on her family and find another job to support herself financially last year despite teaching 10-12 hours a week, delaying progress on her thesis. “I had to live,” she said.
France’s Conference of University Presidents has argued that only a small number of the vacataires are PhD students. Many are lawyers, doctors and other professionals brought in to deliver courses to students on top of their existing jobs, said Mr Rodriguez.
Although there are no official statistics, the CJC estimates that around a quarter of PhD students, about 10,000 to 15,000, and particularly in the social sciences and humanities, are on these temporary teaching arrangements. This temporary teaching work “for a lot of PhD students [is] their only source of money to do their PhD”, he said.
The CJC is now in discussions with the ministry, in the hope that a new research law will tackle the issue and introduce a specific contract for PhD students.
A spokeswoman for France’s Ministry of Higher Education and Research said that the issue was being discussed ahead of the drafting of a new law on research, to be published by the end of this year. Frédérique Vidal, the higher education minister, has said that this law – which would come into force in September 2021 – would give “more time, more means, and more flexibility” for research.
Publicație : The Times
Borracce alle matricole, differenziata in dipartimento e corsi sostenibili: le università abbracciano l'ambiente
Interventi concreti da Venezia a Catania. Sul tema una due giorni della Conferenza dei rettori a Udine. E dal 2013 ad oggi 68 atenei pubblici e privati hanno aderito alla Rete per lo sviluppo sostenibile
ROMA - L’università italiana si spende per l’ambiente e la sua sostenibilità. Non è più solo una questione di corsi di laurea a trazione ecologica nei dipartimenti più diversi: ovviamente Agraria, ma anche Ingegneria, Architettura e Giurisprudenza (il Diritto all’ambiente si studia all’Università di Bologna e aFerrara, all’Università della Tuscia e a Teramo). Gli atenei singoli, uno dopo l’altro, stanno facendo scelte concrete per dare il proprio contributo negli anni della condivisione e del messaggio green. Oggi sono sessantotto, quindi la maggioranza, gli atenei pubblici e privati che aderiscono alla Rete delle università per lo sviluppo sostenibile (partita nel novembre 2013).
Il prestigioso Ateneo di Ca’ Foscari, Venezia, con il prossimo anno accademico – quindi a settembre - doterà tutte le matricole di borracce in metallo, una vera e propria dotazione per eliminare dai corridoi e dalle aule le bottiglie di plastica. Una scelta già messa in atto in questi mesi dall'ateneo di Roma Tre. Ancora, in tutti i principali incontri e nelle riunioni istituzionali di Ca' Foscari – Senato accademico, consigli di amministrazione, riunioni di valutazione - sui tavoli si vedranno caraffe d’acqua e bicchieri compostabili. Il servizio di catering sarà scelto sulla base della miglior offerta di cibo (biologico, vegetariano, a chilometro zero) e il non utilizzo di stoviglie e bicchieri monouso. L’Università estenderà la diffusione delle colonnine dell’acqua nelle principali sedi e sostituirà in tutte le macchine del caffè i bicchieri e le palette di plastica con equivalenti biodegradabili consentendo di selezionare l’opzione “senza erogazione del bicchiere” per incentivare l’utilizzo di tazze personali. Il rettore Michele Bugliesi ricorda come Ca’ Foscari abbia attivato da tempo la raccolta differenziata interna e il controllo dei consumi energetici.
Anche l’Università di Catania, dopo una campagna plastic free, in questi giorni arriva alla raccolta differenziata nelle diverse strutture dell’Ateneo. Il professor Federico Vagliasindi, Dipartimento di Ingegneria civile e Architettura, spiega: “Queste buone pratiche sono state avviate in passato con iniziative disorganiche che hanno avuto successo solo nel breve termine, senza lasciare un'organizzazione consolidata. Vogliamo creare un sistema di raccolta differenziata permanente applicabile in ateneo e che coinvolga tutte le componenti universitarie”. Nell’intera città di Catania la raccolta differenziata è al 123 per cento, decisamente bassa.
Uno studio dell’Università di Parma condotto insieme a Milano Bicocca – e pubblicato su "Ecological Economics" – spiega come un aumento del tasso di raccolta differenziata del 10 per cento produrrebbe una riduzione di rifiuti pro-capite dall’1,5 al 2 per cento: mezzo milione di tonnellate in meno ogni anno. In Italia nel 2017 sono stati prodotti 489 chili di rifiuti urbani pro-capite, un dato in linea con la media europea. La percentuale di raccolta differenziata dei rifiuti solidi urbani, va detto, è cresciuta in modo significativo negli ultimi ventidue anni passando dal 5 per cento nel 1995 al 55,5 per cento nel 2017.
La partecipazione accademica alle sorti ambientali di tutti ha portato la Conferenza dei rettori (Crui) a organizzare una "due giorni" a Udine – ieri e oggi – nell’ambito dei “Magnifici incontri”. Otto temi in discussione nei tavoli di lavoro a partire da questo concetto: “Le università svolgono un ruolo cruciale sia nella formazione delle generazioni future che nella trasmissione della conoscenza all’intera società”.
A Udine si è costruito il discorso attorno all’Agenda 2030 e alla presa d’atto che l’attuale modello di sviluppo è insostenibile non solo sul piano ambientale, ma anche su quello economico e sociale.
Publicație : La Repubblica
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