As I had anticipated in my post on August 13, last week I took part in the “Meeting for friendship among peoples”, in Rimini (Emilia-Romagna, Italy). This meeting is a multi-event festival organized annually by Communion and Liberation, an Italian Catholic association, where prominent people from culture, academy, science, society, and politics are invited to give talks or participate in debates.

Although not specifically related to my MERCURY project, I decided to attend the festival because I considered that the high level of the events could be very useful for my training. I was especially interested in the lectures and debates concerning the political and economic landscape, in Italy and in Europe. After all, as I had specified in my Career Development Plan – a document that I had to produce before the beginning of project describing my career objectives after the Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship – I am particularly committed to ensuring that my research can ultimately have a policy impact, and in this perspective I always seek occasions to learn more about the political and economic scenarios within which that impact may be framed.

Among others, during the Meeting I attended:

• a talk by Paolo Gentiloni (Italian Prime Minister), concerning the Italian scenario and prospects
• two talks by Enrico Letta (former Italian Prime Minister) and Antonio Tajani (President of the European Parliament), concerning the European scenario and prospects, in particular in the context of the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome
• a debate on the Italian economy, with Carlo Calenda (Italian Minister of Economic Development) and some CEOs of Italian companies
• a debate on the European economy with several academics from all around the continent
• a debate concerning the youth employment in big companies, with experts from the industry and the academy

I found all talks and debates really interesting and insightful and I was really happy to participate.

Of course, differently from my usual conferences, I did not give any presentation, so I have nothing to upload in this sense. Just not to leave the post empty, I attach some (more or less random!) photos of the event.