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June 2021 ESRFnews
Living to serve CNR president, Maria Chiara Carrozza, advocates a new scientific humanism in Italy s research landscape.
Maria Chiara Carrozza, the new president of Italy s National Research Council (CNR), has spent a career applying her skills to those who need it most. An engineer by training, she has studied in a middle world between micro-engineering, robotics and biomedical engineering, becoming an expert in the medical applications of robotics, such as powered exoskeletons. Today, the ageing of the population is clearly one of the most critical challenges of our societies, hence the urgency to provide solutions enabling our ageing society to remain active, creative, productive and above all independent, she says. But Carrozza is also no stranger
to politics: between 2013 and 2014 she was minister for education and research, and continued in parliament until 2018 as a member of the Italian chamber of deputies, serving in the foreign and European affairs committee. It is this experience that she will have to draw on to lead Italy s largest research body, which oversees 8500 researchers, a 900 m annual budget and a host of big challenges not least how to influence and implement the spending of a 14 bn pot for research and innovation within the country s national recovery and resilience plan (PNRR). Instigated and funded by the European Commission, these plans aim to make member states bounce back from the COVID-19 pandemic in ways that specifically boost sustainability, and digital infrastructure and training. In Italy as in other member states, however, there has been much discussion on how to spend the funds the Italian government sent their proposal to Brussels at the end of April, when Carrozza was only two weeks into the job. The digital and ecological
transitions are clearly, together with health and education, the first strategic challenges facing us, she says.
BORN: Pisa, Italy EDUCATION: Laurea physics, University of Pisa, Italy (1990); PhD engineering, Scuola Superiore Sant Anna, Pisa (1994). CAREER: Full professor of biomedical engineering and robotics, Scuola Superiore Sant Anna (2006); rector (2007 2013); Italian minister for education and research (2013 2014); member, Italian Chamber of Deputies (2014 2018); president, CNR, Italy (2021 ).
The ESRF has been part of my life since I was 20 years old
The PNRR funds for innovation and research offer us an important, historic opportunity, as a country and as the CNR. The PNRR will be strengthened by the transversal skills that we can offer to overcome the major challenges in the field of education, environment, health and the transformation of the public administration.
First woman With the election of Carrozza, the CNR has a female president for the first time a historic step in Italy , she says. [It s] a symbol of female empowerment, of what women can achieve in their careers. We must do our utmost to offer the awareness that every study path is accessible to girls as well as to boys. We need a cultural transformation of science and technology, always starting from the assumption of adequate preparation. From now on, I hope that we will all start working together, women and men, for the CNR and for scientific research. One of the places she wants to continue a strong relationship with is the ESRF, which she calls an outstanding scientific infrastructure . It has been part of my life since I was 20 years old. The CNR is a main contributor, and as a president and as a scientist I ensure that I will have a special attention to the ESRF and the collaboration with the CNR. Despite the workload, Carrozza
allows herself a little spare time. She loves reading French literature, she goes to the opera, and during the lockdown has been practising yoga. But she never forgets whom she is serving. My vision is based on a new scientific humanism: the method is the scientific evidence and the objective is people s well-being, she says. Science will have to place more and more at the service of the society and in particular of the least privileged ones.
Jon Cartwright
