Roberto Rocca Project: for 10 years a bridge between students of Politecnico di Milano and Bostons’ MIT
For ten years a collaboration that promotes exchange of Master degree students, doctoral students and young researchers from Politecnico di Milano and MIT, and that supports partnership in research activities. It was the mission of Rocca Project that, in past 10 years, led to important milestones: over 100 joint research projects between MIT and Politecnico di Milano within the Bioengineering, Material Science, Mechanical Engineering, Energetics, Physics and ICT, and more than 80 PhD students, Post Doctorates and young researchers involved. These are the numbers that characterize a true “steel bridge” between the first university in the world in technical-scientific field and the first Italian universities in the same field.
“These collaborations – says Gianfelice Rocca, president of Humanitas Research Hospital and Humanitas University – furthered the contamination of ideas by building a bridge between the two universities, allowing fellows to retrace the path taken by Roberto Rocca. Therefore we will renew the funding for another five years, strengthening it to better meet the challenges of multi-disciplines, in particular between Engineering and Life Sciences. I believe that this represents the next wave of innovation that will materialize positively in industrial and economic terms for our country. “
The project, born in 2005, is an agreement between the Foundation of Agostino Brothers and Enrico Rocca, between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston and Politecnico di Milano, with an aim also to remember Roberto Rocca (1922-2003, who graduated with honors at Politecnico di Milano in 1945 and obtained a PhD from MIT in 1950). Among the future developments, in collaboration with Humanitas University, the university dedicated to Life Sciences will tightly integrated with the IRCCS Istituto Clinico Humanitas in Rozzano, hospital and research center. Humanitas University, where classes are taught entirely in English, has a fully international scope: the visiting faculty includes Nobel Prize winners (Rolf Zinkernagel, Jules Hoffmann) and worldwide-renowned researchers.