Thanks for your interest in EuroScholars, a unique research study abroad program in Europe. In each edition, this newsletter aims to keep you updated with the latest developments on the program!

Four of the Spring 2010 EuroScholars have been granted EuroScholars Awards by the consortium for their high academic achievement. The €2,000 Institutional Awards are new and given by the specific university on site. Students will receive those funds upon arrival to help with their food and personal expenses during the semester. MORE> 

Congratulations to the following recipients!

Jillian Fiore €2,000 EuroScholars Inst. Award Rutgers University Leiden University	Stacy Keller €500 EuroScholars Award University of Tulsa Lund University
Kerry Hunter €500 EuroScholars Award University of Manitoba University of Helsinki	Courtney Schirf €500 EuroScholars Award Mt. Holyoke College University of Helsinki

EuroScholars Awards are available each semester. Students with a cumulative GPA of 3.5 or higher will automatically be considered upon acceptance to the EuroScholars program.

THE UNIVERSITY OF MILAN AND UNESCO PRESERVING RURAL HERITAGE

Since 2007, the University of Milan, in collaboration with UNESCO and 24 Universities from four different continents, is working on a project aimed at preserving the rural heritage threatened by multiplying industrial settlements.

The new concept of environmental and rural heritage safeguard covers the idea of preservation and protection of rural sites and of historical and architectural heritage, covering the valorization of all human end environmental relations. This is the new meaning of “vernacular rural heritage”: safeguard is intended not only as survival and preservation of the already existing heritage, but also as rebuilding of the human and environmental relations between agricultural production and local sites as well as of the identity of rural sites.

The Faculty of Agriculture of the University of Milan has been working on this topic for years. A Memorandum of Understanding with UNESCO – World Heritage Centre was signed in 2007, aimed at defining and valorizing the vernacular rural heritage. Since then the Faculty has been coordinating an international research project, involving research units from Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Chile, Ethiopia, France, Holland, Russia, Spain, India, Nigeria, Sweden, Togo and USA. Their results are being monitored by the EC Research Common Centre, which evaluates the possible interactions with the agricultural and environmental policies in the framework of the new Common Agricultural Policy.

The research is strongly interdisciplinary oriented and aims at increasing the value of the role of rural systems in the international, national and local contexts. The project is developed in the framework of the UNESCO Forum University & Heritage, a network of research units designed to develop specific curricula regarding protection and valorization of human heritage safeguarded by UNESCO. 
 

YOUNG ITALIAN RESEARCHER AWARDED BY PRESIDENT OBAMA

In July of 2009, the President of the United States, Barack Obama announced the recipients of the Presidential Young Investigators Award, the highest acknowledgment bestowed by the USA to young researchers at the beginning of their careers. 

Among others, the award has been granted to Gianluigi Ciovati, a young researcher from the University of Milan working in the Department of Physics under the supervision of Prof. Carlo Pagani. He’s the second Italian researcher receiving this award in the history of Presidential Young Investigators Award. 

COUNCIL OF TAIWAN RANKING: UNIVERSITY OF MILAN IS NUMBER ONE

The updated ranking by the prestigious Council of Taiwan has been recently issued. Every year since 2007 the Higher Education & Accreditation Council of Taiwan has been ranking the best 500 Universities in the world, on the basis of impact, productivity and excellence parameters and of the evaluation of their contribution to the development of scientific research.

The University of Milan has been ranked the first place in Italy and turned out to excel in different scientific areas. In Medicine the University of Milan obtained first place in Italy, 12th in Europe and 58th in the world. The first place in Italy was also obtained by the University of Milan’s Agricultural, Biological and Social Sciences areas. 
 

Learn more about EuroScholars and the University of Milan HERE

From 27 to 30 August 2009, the University of Milan hosted the sixth edition of the “Bright Conference”, an event launched in 2004 in the framework of the League of European Research Universities (LERU) as an opportunity for European students to dialogue and discuss.

The League of European Research Universities (LERU) was founded in 2002 by a group of twelve European universities with the objective of creating a common policy forum of top research universities in Europe.
LERU is an association of European research-intensive universities committed to the pursuit of excellent teaching within an environment of world-class research.

The European Students’ Conference is a three-day conference in which students from the LERU universities, discuss various topics concerning the political, economic, and social future of Europe. Every year, a relevant issue or challenge is chosen to play a central role in the conference. The conference wants to promote the collaboration and the relationship between the universities of the League of European Research Universities, and to provide students with unique learning opportunities in challenging, cultural, group-work and communication areas.

The topic chosen for the BRIGHT 2009 was: Food & Water: an Increasing Challenge.

This subject, which had been selected for its synergic relationship with the main topic of the Milan Expo 2015, was discussed and developed taking into consideration many subject matters that ranged from natural science to politics, from law to the arts.

The topics were introduced by expert lecturers and then developed in special working groups, where the students could compare and contrast their ideas. The topic of nutrition, of access to such fundamental resources as water and food, was taken as an integral part of a rapidly growing and evolving global context: concepts such as sustainable development, intensive exploitation of resources and equity in their distribution (while at the same time maintaining high levels of quality and safety) have recently engaged considerable media discussion, acquiring the status of leading ideas in everyday debate.