60 years of Ictp: Fedriga, pillar of Fvg scientific progress

(ANSA) – TRIESTE, MAY 10 – “In 60 years of history, the ICTP has represented a fundamental pillar for the scientific and technological progress of the region and today also thanks to it the Fvg has become an international innovation laboratory, much that the Regional Innovation Index (RII) classifies it as a ‘Strong Innovator’ region.
Its presence has transformed the territory of Friuli Venezia Giulia into an authentic global center of innovation, catalyzing a series of significant changes”. This was said by the president of the Fvg Region, Massimiliano Fedriga, in an interview with Ansa on the 60 years of Abdus Salam Institute of Theoretical Physics.
“The research system that originated from the ICTP has had a transformative impact on various spheres of society and the regional economy – continued Fedriga – The presence of the ICTP has contributed to positioning Friuli Venezia Giulia as an important international hub for scientific research”. Every year “six thousand researchers arrive at the ICTP from all over the world, in the last 60 years 200 thousand have passed”: an “undoubted indirect impact on the local economy, in particular on Trieste, helping to strengthen its role as a scientific and cultural center of world-famous”, in addition to the “indirect effect on the economy”, including tourism, hospitality and services.
Over the years the Institute has been the destination of 107 Nobel Prize winners, “an impressive figure which perhaps unfortunately has not received due attention and recognition”. To remedy this, “it is essential to create more opportunities for meeting and dialogue between the ICTP and the local community, such as the Maker Faire Trieste, supported every year by the Fvg Region”. But it is also “important to involve local and national institutions in promoting the ICTP as a center of excellence and innovation”. Fedriga then recalled some important international events on science: “ESOF 2020 and next October, in Trieste, the Big Science Business Forum, an international business-oriented conference that brings together the main European research infrastructures, accredited as the main meeting point between research infrastructures and industry”. (HANDLE).