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September 19, 2023 | 9.00 am to 1.30 pm
Auditorium, Venice International University 

VIU students have the opportunity to participate in this conference. Registration is recommended.

The event is part of the 2023 Sustainability Biennial "The MOSE era", an international initiative that aims to make Venice a point of reference for strategies for adaptation to climate change. 

Visit page to consult program 

Globalization Program students attending the 1st semester of courses are advised that attendance at the conference will not be considered a justified absence in the courses. They may they may consider attending the meeting between classes.  

Robots playing language games: an experiment in art and science

with Luc Steels

March 27, 5 pm
Venice International University, Isola di San Servolo

The unprecedented threat of climate change is posing a severe risk to human activities, due to the increasing frequency and magnitude of extreme events.

Introducing Climate Proofing in Investments and Spatial Planning (ICPISP) is a project by Enel Foundation and VIU – TEN Program, in collaboration with the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change (CMCC). It aims at applying a multi‐hazard approach for a Socio‐Economic Regional Risk Assessment (SERRA).

April 11th, 2018, Venice International University
Room 1G, 5pm

Speakers
Andrea Buratti, Università Tor Vergata Roma, The Proportionality Principle in the Jurisprudence of Constitutional Courts
Sara De Vido, Università Ca' Foscari, Fundamental Human Rights
Massimo Papa, Università Tor Vergata Roma, Constitutional Values

Hiroshi Nishihara taught "Social Exclusion and Human Rights" and "Comparing East and West" at VIU in Fall 2017. He was due to return to Venice in February, to teach in the Spring 2018 semester, when he tragically passed away in a car accident in Tokyo. He was highly esteemed by colleagues, students and staff.

Now three VIU Law professors of Fall 2017 are rejoining to pay a tribute to his intellectual and scholarly contributions.

Nishihara was Professor of Constitutional Law at Waseda University, where he has also been Dean of the Graduate School of Social Sciences and Director of the Institute of Social Sciences. He was National Bar Examiner for the Ministry of Justice of Japan. He was internationally renowned and author of a number of authoritative academic books and articles in Japanese, German and English, and of a book, explaining the Japanese Constitution to primary and middle school students. His main fields were Constitutionalism, Fundamental Theories on Human Rights, Constitution of the Welfare State and Sex Equality.

Nishihara was a champion of "constitutional values", historically understood in the framework of Human Rights and Democracy. He thought, that in today's plural societies, which are challenged by multiculturalism and feminism, "the significance of constitutional values lies not in maximizing the contribution to national culture at the expense of the rights and interests of minorities, but in making peaceful coexistence possible". In our cosmopolitan world, he believed, constitutional values had to be established at a global level.

Everybody is invited.

The Council of Europe is an international organisation focused on protecting human rights, democracy, rule of law in Europe and promoting European culture. Founded in 1949, it has 47 member states, covers approximately 820 million people and operates with an annual budget of approximately half a billion euros.

The organisation is distinct from the 28-nation European Union (EU), although it is sometimes confused with it, partly because the EU has adopted the original European Flag which was created by the Council of Europe in 1955, as well as the European Anthem. No country has ever joined the EU without first belonging to the Council of Europe.

Unlike the EU, the Council of Europe cannot make binding laws, but it does have the power to enforce select international agreements reached by European states on various topics. The best known body of the Council of Europe is the European Court of Human Rights, which enforces the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Council's two statutory bodies are the Committee of Ministers, comprising the foreign ministers of each member state, and the Parliamentary Assembly, composed of members of the national parliaments of each member state. The Commissioner for Human Rights is an independent institution within the Council of Europe, mandated to promote awareness of and respect for human rights in the member states. The Secretary General heads the secretariat of the organisation.

The headquarters of the Council of Europe are in Strasbourg, France.

The Council of Europe Venice Office

The Council of Europe Programme Office in Venice focuses its activities on themes relevant to both the organisation and the city of Venice, raising awareness and informing on such issues as the integration of minorities, gender equality, citizens’ participation, the role of women in the Euro-Mediterranean context, the integration of Roma and Remembrance Day.

Venice International University (VIU) signed a Cooperation Agreement with the Council of Europe on 23 February 2012.
The Agreeement was signed on the Island of San Servolo by the Deputy Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Ms. Gabriella Battaini-Dragoni, and the President of Venice International University, Ambassador Umberto Vattani.

The Course for Sustainability is a training program on sustainable development for countries of Central and Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Black Sea.

It is conceived as a series of regional courses with the aim of addressing specific environmental topics crucial for the sustainable development of the targeted region. To foster partnerships among participants for the promotion of local and regional cooperation on sustainability is a wider objective of the Course.

The Course is usually made of a one-week session at Venice International University and an introductory or concluding session in the targeted region.

The Course is supported by the Italian Ministry for the Environment, and developed in strict cooperation with the Regional Environmental Center (REC).

Please find here the updates on the courses held online this semester.

The summer school will not be offered in 2023.

Our societies and the systems we depend on are under increasing pressure. This course aims to offer concrete solutions on decision-making to manage crises and build resilience within our systems. As managers or employees of public & private organizations, as academics working on this topic, we often struggle with the uncertainty associated with crises and how to prioritize our decisions. Covid-19, forest fires and floods, the war have impacted us directly or indirectly. The broad span of these events allows us to differentiate and compare various resilience strategies deployed by governments and businesses. And to see which strategies performed better.

The summer school on Critical Infrastructure Resilience (CIR), led by the University of Rome Tor Vergata, offers a pragmatic framework and shares tactical tools used by governments and businesses. The framework reflects both national laws and the International Standard Organization guidelines and is accessible, impact oriented, and pragmatic.

The course combines classical approaches used in disaster risk management, critical infrastructure management and climate change adaptation. The added value of merging several perspectives is that it allows for a better understanding of resilience strategies and options, such as whether to go back to the old normal or move forward and establish a new normal. Most often than not, resilience strategies are successful when they work for the whole sector/system in which they operate. For this, they need to understand the connectivity and the complexity of the system they are working with and identify the nods, the pressure points from where to gain leverage. 

The course consists of a mix of theoretical knowledge, case studies/projects and hands-on exercises. This course will discuss the concept of CI and aims to provide the participants with (i) a clear understanding of the framework and tactical tools, (ii) a series of existing decision-making tools used by public entities, businesses and international organizations, and (iii) peer learning from participant’s experiences.

Faculty contributing to the program 
Erdem Ergin, Tor Vergata University of Rome (Coordinator)
Carlo Giupponi, Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia
Jonas Johansson, Lund University
Carlo Papa, Enel Foundation
Alessio Marcelli, e-distribuzione
Federico Carturan, RiskApp
Albert Chen, University of Exeter
Stefano Salata, Izmir Institute of Technology

Course outline
M1 – Resilience framework and CI concept
M2 – Solution 1 – Prepare a scenario
M3 – Impacts & ranking criticality
M4 – Hazard impact on CI and services
M5 – Solution 2 – Crisis management timeline
M6 – Network resilience across the energy infrastructure
M7 – Decision-making under uncertainty
M8 – Cascading impact evaluation
M9 – Link between ecosystem services and CI
M10 – Solution 3 – Recovery strategy

Target
Professionals, officials and graduate students already working on the topic or thinking their work may benefit from it. Ability to read and write fluently in English is a must.

Credits
ECTS equivalence: 2

June 26 – 30, 2017

In its first edition, the summer school on Critical Infrastructure Resilience (CIR) brings together academics and professional experts to discuss an emerging topic with a pragmatic and scientific approach.

The VIU School is organized in cooperation with University of Tor Vergata, Waseda University and Lund University.

Course Description
From the neighborhood we live in to global production supply chains, we live in an increasingly connected world, where we often use our infrastructure for multiple purposes. Our society becomes more efficient but also increasingly interdependent and complex. So the loss of performance or disruption in some key points can have a cascading impact throughout the system. We refer to these key points as critical infrastructure: “An asset, system or part thereof which is essential for the maintenance of vital societal functions, health, safety, security, economic or social well-being of people, and the disruption or destruction of which would have a significant impact”. This course explains how critical infrastructure works and fails; its cascading impact from local to global, and the strategies to use to build resilience against e.g. extreme events and climate change.

To give some examples:
- A local riot in Delhi, India in February disrupted a key water distribution canal, cutting off water supply to 17 million residents.
- The 2011 Tohoku Earthquake that hit Japan disrupted many automotive factories and caused rippling impact, like the General Motors truck plant in Louisiana that had to shut down temporarily for lack of Japanese-made parts.
- The 2010 volcanic eruption over Iceland grounded commercial flights over 20 countries, affecting 10 million passengers.
These examples can be found across all fields and used at different scales, from social interactions to lifeline utilities to trade and commerce.

Critical infrastructure resilience has its roots in system theory and complexity theory, with applications ranging from engineering performance design to ecosystem management. We use the broader definition “the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and re-organize while undergoing change so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure, identity, and feedbacks.” This definition means that we consider 2 types of impact: an extreme event (i.e. terrorist attack or a natural disaster) that can disrupt the core function of an infrastructure or, a change in operating conditions (such as different mean temperature or precipitation pattern due to climate change) that can affect the performance and competitiveness of the infrastructure.

The course aims to provide a solid understanding of critical infrastructure and its role for the global, interconnected world we live in and to frame it within the concept of resilience.

The course consists of a mix of theoretical knowledge, case studies and hands-on exercises. The city of Venice will be used as a laboratory and students will learn first hand how to identify a critical infrastructure, assess its risk, develop resilience strategies and devise ways to apply them. Students will work on their field of interest and contribute to a multi-disciplinary teamwork.

Topics
- Definition and role of critical infrastructure
- Cascading impacts and methodology to rank criticality
- Risk assessment methods and ways to develop scenarios
- Infrastructure systems and asset management
- Risk management strategies
- Connecting the dots with the infrastructure life cycle
- Case Study: Strategic thinking within the EU
- Applied work: Identification of critical infrastructure in Venice
- Applied work: Risk assessment and prioritization
- Applied work: Elaboration of resilience strategies

Methodology
The 5-day course consists of 10 modules (as listed above), offering a mix of theoretical knowledge, experience sharing and applied work in the city of Venice. Students will follow lectures in the classroom and go out in the city in teams for each of the 3 applied work sessions to collect data, identify assets they judge critical and apply the techniques and tools shared in class.

Learning outcomes of the program
At the end of the course, students will be familiar with concepts such as critical infrastructure, resilience, cascading impact, and various risk strategies. The course will also provide practical tools and methods on how to: identify critical infrastructure and prioritize them, conduct basic risk assessment and develop scenarios, and elaborate resilience strategies.

Target
Graduate students and working professionals from any university, research institute, or other organization (private companies, government agencies, NGOs) with an interest in critical infrastructure issues and ability to read and write fluently in English. Advanced undergraduates will also be considered.

Faculty
- Erdem Ergin, University of Tor Vergata/ World Bank (Coordinator)
- Tomoya Shibayama, Waseda University
- Jonas Johansson, Lund University
- Henrik Hassel, Lund University
- Gaetano Vivo, European Commission

Fees
Students of VIU member universities: € 300 incl. VAT.
Students of other universities/professionals: € 600 incl. VAT.

The fees will cover tuition, course materials, accommodation in multiple rooms at the VIU campus, lunches in the VIU cafeteria and social events.
Student participants will be responsible for covering their own travel expenses to and from Venice and local transportation.

Credits
Number of ECTS credits allocated: 2

A Certificate of attendance will be issued at the end of the course.

Applications
Admissions are now closed.

For further information: summerschools@univiu.org

July 16 – 20, 2018

The VIU Summer School on Critical Infrastructure Resilience (CIR) brings together academics and professional experts to discuss an emerging topic with a pragmatic and scientific approach. The School, led by the University of Rome Tor Vergata, explains how critical infrastructure works and fails; its cascading impact from local to global, and the strategies to use to build a resilient society.

June 2-6, 2025

Call For Application: December 2, 2024 – February 2, 2025

The Graduate Seminar is led by:
- University of Padua, Italy
- University of Exeter, United Kingdom
- Boston College, USA

Phenomenology has gained significant traction in recent decades, particularly due to a scientific rehabilitation of the first-person perspective and the realization of the cultural and bodily conditionality of experience. Critical Phenomenology embosses the contemporary relevance of phenomenology, concentrating particularly on the interdisciplinary nature of critical discourse, encompassing philosophy, and social, political, and psychological sciences. It is an “ameliorative phenomenology” (Weiss, Murphy, and Salamon 2019), expands the conceptual framework and theoretical analyses of the tradition with the aim of denaturalizing the taken-for-granted assumptions and presuppositions that operate at the level of the natural attitude and integrates and revises concepts from classical and existentialist phenomenological traditions to create a more inclusive and intersectional phenomenological analysis.
The Graduate Seminar “Critical Phenomenology” is dedicated to an emerging branch of philosophy that engages with crucial global debates, focusing on pressing topics like health, gender, and discrimination, making it engaging to a community that extends beyond the ranks of philosophers.

Faculty

Andrea Altobrando, University of Padova (Scientific Coordinator)
Elena Billwiller, Università di Padova
Valentina Bortolami, University of Padova
Christine Daigle, Brock University
Luna Dolezal, University of Exeter
Rebecca Lynch, University of Exeter
Elisa Magrì, Boston College
Paddy McQueen, Swansea University
Elif Yavnik, Sabanci University

Topics
- Phenomenology as description of phenomena
- The function of description in the formation of critical attitudes
- What is “critical” in phenomenology and Critical Phenomenology
- Phenomenological relevance of socio-political dimensions (e.g., gender, race, ability)
- Socio-political dimensions and first-person experiences
- Identity, identities, and diversity
- Embodiment, health, and illness
- Phenomenology, embodiment, and shame
- Phenomenology and emotions
- Phenomenology and anthropology
- Phenomenology and psychology
- Embodiment and affect in health research
- Methodological and epistemological aspects of Critical Phenomenology: tradition, pluralism, interdisciplinary.

Who can apply?
This Graduate Seminar is offered to advanced Master, PhD students and junior researchers in Humanities (Philosophy, Medical Humanities, Gender Studies, Critical Theory), Political Sciences, Social Sciences, and Health Sciences.

Fees & grant support
Full fee waiver scholarships are available for students from VIU member institutions. In addition, grant support is available to support partially or fully the costs of international travel. Accommodation is provided free of charge.
Three fee-waiver scholarships and Erasmus+ mobility grants (international travel, accommodation, meals) are available to support the participation of doctoral students from Stellenbosch University. For further information please write to Stellenbosch University Outgoing Student Mobility: matiesabroad@sun.ac.za
The participation fee for students of non-member institutions is Eur 1,150 (incl. VAT). The fee is inclusive of tuition, course materials, accommodation, lunches, social events, and taxes.
Students from non-member institutions are not eligible for VIU grant support.
VIU Alumni are eligible for a reduced fee.

Applicants must submit the (1) application form, (2) a letter of motivation – which should include a short bio and a brief description of the candidate’s research project, (3) a curriculum vitae, and (4) a photo.

For further information please download the brochure and the program or write to: summerschools@univiu.org

Co-funded by Erasmus+ Project 2022-1-IT02-KA131-HED-000068420 in the context of the Erasmus+ VIU Mobility Consortium 2021-2027.

Venue: Venice International University
Dates: June 9-11, 2022

Program of the Conference

By definition, environmental humanists seek to explore the bond between humans and nature, and they dedicate themselves to promoting ecological policies and practices that are socially just. Yet who is the “human” at the heart of environmental humanities?

This conference seeks to understand what it means to be human and to recognize how the human transforms in light of new trends in the medical, technological, and philosophical fields. It also raises the question of what we are willing to share with whom in a moment when urgent social trends—including migration brought on by ecological catastrophe—significantly complicate a progressive agenda.

• How is the human redefined in relation to the accelerated transformations of the ocean and global sea level rise?
• Furthermore, what do we gain by understanding humans as inextricably connected to other species in a multi-species setting? How do we advance a flexible and capacious definition of the human, one that is capable of considering all terrestrial beings?
• Lastly, how do we alter our disciplinary and classroom practices to incorporate new definitions of the human?

This three-day conference will explore such questions and will facilitate multi-disciplinary conversation among those dedicated to creating flexible, workable definitions of humanity directed toward social justice. With attention to pedagogy and public intellectualism, it seeks ways to ensure the broadest possible dissemination of twenty-first century humanistic ideals. In short, it seeks to make the case that, far from being obsolete, a twenty-first century humanism that responds to evolving notions of the human remains absolutely crucial to our shared planetary future.

Conference participants will be invited to a guided tour of the Venice Biennale 2022 to consider how international artists have responded to our themes. Additional tours of the lagoon in the context of the Blue Humanities will also be available.

Keynote speaker: Serenella Iovino, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Coordinator: Prof. Elizabeth Kowaleski Wallace, Boston College
Other Faculty: Shaul Bassi, Università Ca' Foscari Venezia and Helmuth Trischler, Rachel Carson Centre for Environment and Society at LMU

VIU Global Challenges Initiative

June 6-11, 2022

This Graduate Seminar will be led by:
- Boston College, USA
- Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy
- Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Germany

Workshop
Tuesday, June 4, 15.00 pm

Palazzo Bo, Padova (Aula Nievo)

The Department of Economics and Business "Marco Fanno" of the University of Padova, in partnership with the Mobis Project and in collaboration with InVento School and Jonix are organizing the workshop: "Sviluppare innovazione sociale: il ruolo delle fondazioni bancarie e delle imprese ad alto tasso di sostenibilità".

During the workshop, the results of two recent researches conducted within the "MoBIS project - Nuovi modelli di business e valutazione dell’impatto sociale: percorsi di sostenibilità per le PMI" will be presented. 

The event is part of the program of the Sustainable Development Festival promoted by ASviS.

More information on the event is available at the link below:
https://ilbolive.unipd.it/it/event/sviluppare-innovazione-sociale-ruolo-fondazioni

On the occasion of the 57th International Art Exhibition - Biennale di Venezia, and following the positive experience of the 2015 edition, San Servolo island hosts Dicono dell’Arte, a series of conferences dedicated to contemporary art. The cycle is organized by: San Servolo srl, Collegio Internazionale Ca' Foscari, Venice International University and Waterlines – artistic and literary residencies.

Prominent contributors to the fields of photography and image, design, writing, theology and economics of art will meet university students and the public who are interested in sharing experience and ideas about the world of the arts and aesthetics, and possible applications in modern working careers.

VIU Global Challenges Initiative

Virtual Sessions | August 29 – November 21, 2022 
On Campus | November 28 – December 3, 2022

This Graduate Seminar will be led by:
- KU Leuven, Belgium
- Stellenbosch University, South Africa 
- Waseda University, Japan

Stefano Micelli & Eleonora Di Maria

Twenty years ago the TeDIS Center (now TeDIS Program on Innovation) started its activities at VIU. The main idea supporting the launch of TeDIS then was to explore how network technologies that were developing at the end of ‘90s could support value creation and sustain new business models for firms and networks. At the beginning of the new millennium the revolution of the Web and the rise of the so-called new economy was an extraordinary laboratory of experimentation in the use of ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) in business, where new firms (such as Amazon) or new applications (the e-commerce between firms and with the consumers) appeared in the economic landscape.

The Workshop will not take place in 2017.
We look forward to its return in 2018.

What is it about?
Digital Technologies for Historical and Cultural visualization are transforming the ways that scholars can study and represent works of art, as well as growth and change in urban spaces and buildings. With the support of The Getty Foundation as part of its Digital Art History initiative, The Wired! Lab at Duke University, Università Iuav di Venezia, the University of Padua, and Venice International University are collaborating on a Summer Workshop that will train Art, Architectural and Urban Historians with the digital media that can enhance or transform their research questions and their capacity to communicate narratives about objects, places and spaces to the public.
Instruction will be in English.

The course will engage with the Ghetto of Venice on the 500th anniversary of its creation as case study for training with a variety of technologies and applications. (On June 19th there will be the opening of an exhibition dedicated to the history of the Ghetto curated by Prof. Donatella Calabi).

Faculty
-Mark Olson, Duke University
-Victoria Szabo, Duke University

 Senior Advisors

-Caroline Bruzelius, Duke University
-Donatella Calabi, Università Iuav di Venezia

Teaching Assistants
-Ludovica Galeazzo, Università Iuav di Venezia
-Hannah Jacobs, Erica Sherman and Edward Triplett, Duke University

Consultants
-Paolo Borin, Università degli Studi di Padova
-Gianmario Guidarelli, Università degli Studi di Padova

Course description
The summer course will teach a range of digital skills in mapping, 3D modeling, mobile application development, and time based media authorship to enable participants to engage historical questions with emerging digital tools. The technologies are taught through the use of a theme, which for the summer of 2016 was “The Ghetto of Venice”.

During the first week of the course participants learn techniques for digital production by drawing upon existing research materials. Each day, participants will learn about a different type of digital media production within the context of how that type of reconstruction is typically used in digital art and architectural history.

During the second week, the participants will work collaboratively to create projects using the tools they have learned, with the goal of creating high-quality, public-facing research products suitable for a general audience, as well as identifying potential areas to explore in their own future research.

Learning outcomes
- familiarity and facility with digital media production tools for digital art and architectural history
- awareness of the critical and practical challenges to the fields that digital production techniques pose
- understanding of the philosophical and theoretical underpinnings of digital media authorship as an intervention into digital heritage and lived experience of the city.

Who can apply?
The workshop is designed for PhD or Post doctoral participants in the Interpretive Humanities (including Cultural Heritage Studies, History of Art, Architecture and Urbanism, History, Geography, Architecture, Archaeology, and other relevant disciplines).

Preference will be given to PhD students and recent PhD graduates in History of Art, Architecture and Urbanism.
Instruction will be in English, of which participants must have an adequate working knowledge.
Maximum number of participants: 16

 
Program structure
The course duration is 12 days. Participants should expect to be engaged full time in during the twelve days. Participants should plan to arrive June 7 and depart June 21.

Credits
A Duke University/Università Iuav/Venice International University joint Certificate will be issued at the end of the course.
Number of ECTS credits equivalent: 3
 
Duration and Period
12 days, June 8 – 20, 2016
 
Location
Venice International University on the island of San Servolo in the Venetian Lagoon is an ideal setting for onsite study. Participants can live in the housing facilities of the island of San Servolo, or arrange for accommodation in the city of Venice.

Tuition and Scholarships
Tuition fees are € 1,000 (+22%VAT).
Scholarships may be available in order to support tuition, travel, board and accommodation expenses.
 
Contacts and info:
Venice International University
Isola di San Servolo
30133 Venice
ITALY
T +39 041 2719511
F +39 041 2719510
E shss@univiu.org , summerschools@univiu.org

Visualizing Venice summer workshop is organized by Venice International University and jointly promoted by:

With the support of:

Wednesday, March 26

5.10 pm

A walk in the San Marco area guided by the historian Desi Marangon, author with Alberto Toso Fei of the book "I graffiti di Venezia".

The history of Venice is also graffitied on its walls. They show human figures, faces, names and dates and then ships, gondolas, chronicles and crosses, which for centuries have gone unnoticed by most of those who walk through the places of Venetian everyday life.

In the S. Marco area we can find pieces of graffiti dating back to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (testimonies of the election of various doges, or of the jubilation for the construction of the Rialto Bridge) and more recent ones such as the ones about the collapse of the bell tower of San Marco, described in pencil in 1902, or the execution of an anarchist a few years later.

The visit is open to all, please register at the Front Office by Wednesday, March 26, 12 pm (noon).