The first UNESCO Chair in Global Citizenship Education in Higher Education has been established at the University of Bologna, and appointed Massimiliano Tarozzi, Professor of General and Social Education at the Department of Life Quality Studies in the Rimini Campus, where the first International Research Centre on Global Citizenship Education in Italy was created in 2017.
The UNESCO Chair will aim to disseminate global citizenship education (GCE) issues at higher education level, as it is an educational field that has been under-studied and experimented at teaching level. It also aims to strengthen the network of cooperation between the various university institutions involved in this research area. It creates a local network that aims to facilitate collaboration between different types of actors involved in promoting GCE, such as civil society organizations, schools, local authorities, private enterprises. Furthermore, it builds a global network that connects the world's most important research centers to develop joint projects and foster North-South university collaboration.
A rich program of research and teaching activities as well as dissemination events will be planned, centered on the promotion of global citizenship according to the UNESCO perspective, particularly at university level.
In the last decade, the United Nations have strongly promoted GCE as an educational approach. It has been consequently widely adopted in the educational systems of several countries, including Italy. This educational approach aims to provide learners with the knowledge, skills and values needed to live in a globalized world, but above all to make it more just, inclusive, peaceful, and sustainable. Global Citizenship Education is also mentioned in target 4.7 of the Sustainable Development Goals, and constitutes a cross-cutting educational perspective, recognized as essential for the achievement of all 17 goals of the 2030 Agenda that the University of Bologna has adopted.
The project was made possible thanks also to the support of various international scholars and research centers, including the Department of Human Sciences of the University of Verona and the Rimini area. In particular, the UniRimini Consortium has collected the whole-hearted endorsement of several agencies of the Romagna territory around the themes of the UNESCO Chair: Municipality and Province of Rimini; Chamber of Commerce of Forlì, Cesena, Rimini, Confidustria Romagna, CARIM Foundation and Italian Exhibition Group Spa.