The Project aim to consolidate the academic relationship between the Alma Mater Studiorum and the 9 Universities already involved in cooperation agreements at different levels (University, School, Department). This goal will be achieved by promoting different actions focused on the creation of a trans-frontier Joint Lab, on educational offer innovation, on improving of student soft skills and of the University role in the Society (Third Mission) based on the theme “Participatory Agroecology School System” (PASS).
The idea to present a Project on AgroEcology arises from mature reflections on the positioning of the present research and teaching activities and on their efficacy on environmental, economic, cultural and social emergencies. The definition of an agronomist, a graduate student in Agricultural and Food Sciences, lack of an holistic knowledge of the environment in which he moves and works. This knowledge could complete and ameliorate the scientific and practical knowledge, and the acquired soft skills of the students enrolled in the different programmes offered by the Agricultural and Food Sciences Department of the Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna.
The present proposal gives to AgroEcology a crucial role for the preservation of the agriculture, of the environment, and of the whole planet. At the same time, the proposal identifies AgroEcology as a powerful educational tool, highly functional to the transmission of the scientific knowledge. We believe that the agroecological approach in research and teaching will stimulate a scientific interest in student and in people, and it will also improve the capacity to capture the essence of processes, and the world complexity. The University, in fact, has the duty to counteract the serious erosion phenomena that, unluckily, now affected this capacity.
The Project pursues 4 goals focused on AgroEcology:
- Creation of a trans-frontier Joint Lab that will be able to consolidate the cooperation net of the Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna and to improve the academic exchange
- Proposal of an Innovative Teaching offer
- Development of soft skills by means of AgroEcology
- Dissemination of the AgroEcology value in the territory and in the society (Third Mission).
The achievement of these goals will be put into practice by means of 4 targets:
- Progress of the research on the main Project themes
- Training of graduate and PhD students
- Specific action on soft skills
- AgroEcological activities in the territory
