5th Interdisciplinary Symposium took place in Rome

On July 12, 2021, the 5th Interdisciplinary Global Governance Symposium has taken place at Tor Vergata University of Rome. Transdisciplinarity and comparison was its key, as usual. Four distinguished speakers from different fields of expertise and from different countries have fostered with their presentations a debate on the topic voted by students for this year’s Symposium: HOME.

This polysemic, wide-ranging notion has been firstly addressed from the point of view of the engaged urban planner, David Madden of LSE, who highlighted the political, social, cultural implications of the issue of housing while trying to reframe the “housing question” in the light of the contemporary international situation and the needs of the individual. Switching from the private house to our common house, the earth, biologist and marine environmental expert Roberto Danovaro of Marche Polytechnic University followed on, introducing the topic of the sustainable global home as compared to the private housing issue.

The next step envisaged a feature that is common to both the private and the public sphere: the digital environment and its peculiarities, including its ethical implications at the level of Artificial Intelligence, as outlined by Senior research fellow of the Oxford Internet Institute Mariarosaria Taddeo. Eventually, anthropology and social sciences took the floor with Anne-Maria B. Makhulu from Duke University Core Faculty in Innovation and Entrepeneurship, to pave to way to a broader reading of home in terms that involve the very identity of the human being, its needs, expectations, and hopes.

An audience of about 150 attended in person at the beautiful Auditorium of Tor Vergata University of Rome, and further 110 have been attending online. The expectation and hope was also expressed, to meet again next year all together in proximity, to address the topic that the students will want to put under the magnifying glass of the future guests of the Global Governance program. For more information about the event and its past years visit the event’s website.