On the fringes of the G7 Environment meeting, and in the presence of the Italian Environment Minister
Gian Luca Galletti, a three-year, €5 million research and development agreement in the field of energy was signed in Bologna, ENI said on June 12.
ENI CEO
Claudio Descalzi, and the Rector of the Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna,
Francesco Ubertini signed the agreement on June.
ENI’s long-standing cooperation relationship with the University of
Bologna has now been reinforced with the signing of a 3-year framework
agreement and the commitment of €5 million, the Italian company said.
Galletti said this agreement is extremely important as it is a
concrete example of the joint efforts between companies and universities
that the G7 Environment Ministers have promoted at their meeting.
“Businesses that are looking to the future need excellence in the
field of science and research for a sustainable technological
development. Consequently, I am particularly proud that a great company
like ENI has chosen to cooperate with the university of my home city,
which is Europe’s oldest university,” Galletti concluded.
The agreement will focus on the university’s areas of excellence that
can support ENI’s technological development: safety, energy transition,
renewables, support for operational excellence and industrial systems.
“The agreement consolidates the position of the University of
Bologna,” Ubertini, said. “The agreement consolidates the position of
the University of Bologna as a centre of excellence in the field of
technological and economic-social innovation, that aims to develop
synergies with domestic and foreign businesses to strengthen research,
development and technology transfer initiatives, both nationally and
internationally,” he added.
For ENI, Descalzi said, this Framework Agreement with the University
of Bologna is further confirmation of ENI’s strategy for building
partnerships with examples of excellence in the Italian university
sector. “The three-year agreement we have just signed will give ENI
access to an extraordinary pool of expertise in an area that is very
important area for us and enable us to direct our collaboration towards
the development of technologies to support the energy transition,
environmental protection and the reuse of our industrial sites,” he
said.
ENI also said that the agreement confirms, “ENI’s commitment to
scientific and technological research, as well as its strategy of
developing strong links Italian academic excellence, with a view to
establishing strategic partnerships able to better align the skills,
competences and knowledge of the academic world with Eni’s business
objectives”.
The agreement extends and establishes a multi-year collaboration
between the university and ENI on energy-related research and
development issues.
Over the years, ENI has consolidated collaboration with teachers and
researchers from various departments of the University of Bologna that
have contributed to a range of research projects, studies and training
courses in fields such as safety and environmental sustainability,
sustainable technologies, alternative energy sources as well as the
monitoring of the regional coastal system, the Italian company said.
The forms of such collaboration have been varied: the funding of
research grants, participation in joint projects on competitive tenders
at the European level, national research projects, the organisation and
implementation of Masters’ courses and the training of highly
specialised figures able to operate in the fields of planning, safety
and environmental management, according to ENI.
Recent collaboration activities between ENI and the University of
Bologna have included studies on innovative materials for the
production, from natural gas, of methanol, and those on the integration
of wind power, energy storage and the production of natural gas at
offshore assets, ENI said.
https://www.neweurope.eu/article/eni-university-bologna-ink-energy-research-agreement/