University of Salento Rector and ATU President meet and MoU is signed

Report by Directorate for International Academic Cooperation, Allameh Tabataba'i University, Tehran—

Source: atu.ac.ir/fa

Translated into English by Rasoul Firouzi

On 12 April 2025, Professor Fabio Pollice, Rector of the University of Salento, Italy, and Professor Shoja Ahmadvand, Acting President of Allameh Tabataba’i University (ATU), met with the aim of broadening academic collaborations, particularly in the areas of Humanities and Social Sciences.

In the meeting, Dr Ahmadvand welcomed Professor Pollice and his accompanying delegation and highlighted ATU's specialisation in the humanities. He noted that the university is among the leading HE institutes in foreign language education, a pioneer in moot court competitions, home to dedicated faculties such as Insurance and Communication Sciences, and a centre for foundational economic thought.

Dr Ahmadvand stated that, given the numerous affinities between ATU and the University of Salento, there are ample potentials for academic collaboration between the two institutes. He further proposed various areas of cooperation, including mutual language instruction in Persian and Italian, short-term training programs, faculty and student exchanges, joint efforts in launching an archaeology program, collaboration in Erasmus+ projects in trending fields such as AI, the launch of a bilingual Persian-Italian academic journal, and reciprocal donations of books to each university’s library.

Following Dr Ahmadvand’s remarks, Professor Pollice introduced the University of Salento and expressed his appreciation for the proposals presented. He strongly supported the establishment of a bilingual journal, the organisation of online language courses in Persian and Italian for students of both universities, and virtual meetings between faculty members, held in a peer-to-peer format between corresponding departments. These initiatives, he said, would enable a deeper understanding of each institute’s capacities and expand the relations among the academic staff, thereby laying the groundwork for long-term faculty and student exchanges initiated through short-term mobility programs.

At the conclusion of the meeting, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between the two universities, aiming to promote and expand collaboration in areas of mutual interest within the Humanities and Social Sciences, based on the principles of equality and shared benefit.

The MoU includes provisions for:
– exchange of scientific data, books, academic journals, and research documents in educational, research, and technical fields of mutual interest;
– exchange of articles for publication in relevant journals;
– mutual provision of facilities for academic sabbaticals and study opportunities;
– joint development of new academic programs;
– collaboration in launching shared or dual-degree educational courses;
– mutual dissemination of information on international academic events hosted by each university; and
– joint supervision of master’s theses and doctoral dissertations.