hat 25, 37,000 students, 73 degree courses, 19 doctorates, 303 research projects and MUSA, the urban regeneration project funded by the Pnrr involving four universities. The university of Milan Bicocca is young, and wants to grow. The flagship? Sustainability. Today, at the inauguration ceremony of the 2022/23 academic year, the rector Giovanna Iannantuoni said it clearly: «The university continues its path of ecological and social sustainability. The University is ready to respond to this challenge, made even more urgent by the global energy crisis, with ambitious research projects focused on environmental regeneration”.
Giovanna Iannantuoni, rector of the University of Milan Bicocca, during the inauguration ceremony of the 2022/2023 academic year.
A lot of innovation, therefore, without ever forgetting where we come from: during the morning, the slides on technological challenges alternated with Renaissance art images. Because that’s where you have to look when you think about the balance between human beings and nature: learn from the past by looking to the future. With this in mind, the main challenge is that of the energy requalification of the campus buildingswhere is it a geothermal and solar renewable energy system will be built. Goal, a zero-emissions campus.
Milano Bicocca: a laboratory for the city
But the project will not only serve to make the university more sustainable and pleasant (thanks to the green walls). It will serve as a model for other interventions on the city. We will start with an intervention on the U 19 building, then we will move on to those in Piazza della Scienza. The idea is to build wells for the extraction of geothermal energy which, in combination with photovoltaic panels, will allow the reduction of dependence on fossil fuels. “At Bicocca we are convinced that the sustainable development of cities is the first step towards a more inclusive society”, said the rector in her speech which was also the occasion for a mid-term review.
Professor Carlo Ratti, director of the Senseable City Lab of MIT in Boston, during the inauguration ceremony of the 2022/23 academic year at the University of Milan Bicocca.
Milan lends itself well to this green revolution. Between the natural canals and the Navigli, the city lies on the water and the water table, due to the deindustrialization that has been going on for decades, has risen. How not to take advantage of this possibility then? The scientists of Milano Bicocca are studying how to exploit this resource: geothermal energy could make it possible to cover 20 percent of the city’s energy needsdrastically reducing CO2, with benefits for the health of citizens.
Other cities are carrying out innovative projects on sustainability, as Professor Carlo Ratti, director of the Senseable City Lab at MIT in Boston, recounted in his lectio magistralis. «We have to think of ways to make our metropolises Living Labs», he said, «laboratories in which to test experimental ideas for face the challenges of the future, first of all climate change».
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