Italian Academia Goes International

14 November 2006 at 8:34 am Nicolai Foss Leave a comment

| Nicolai Foss |

The universities of quite a number of European countries have reputations — well-deserved in a number of cases — of being hostile to foreign influences as well as foreigners (particularly those yanks!), nepotistic, insular, and introverted, particularly in the social sciences and the humanities. Large European countries, such as France, Italy, and Germany still run a major infrastructure of learned journals in the native tongue, and it is often understood that publishing in one of these (e.g., the Sardinian Journal of the Economics of Olive Production) may be better for one’s career than publishing in irrelevant (and, oh horror, American) journals such as Journal of Political Economy or the Strategic Management Journal.

Luckily, things are changing all over Europe concerning the internationalization of the Academy. Here is an example: The Lucca Institute for Advanced Studies, opened last year to support “PhD programs and research activities in the fields of political and social sciences, market regulations, economics, management, biorobotics, industrial and computer technologies.” On its frontpage it stresses that among its “distinctive features” (!) are “open and competitive selection processes” and “international faculty.” Telling!

Note also the job openings for assistant professors and post-doctoral fellows. Lucca isn’t a bad place at all to spend a part of your life!