La nuova stagione dell’Università italiana e della sua valutazione

In today’s social, cultural and economic reality, higher education is closely connected with questions involving educational practices, expertise and its transference to different areas, the assessment system and the university system in particular. The latter system is, indeed, the core of the problem, considering that it encompasses the ambivalences, transformations and new definitions of scientific education. Such a view is confirmed by the fact that universities are the strongholds in which research, carried out in association with teaching, provides all the resources necessary for scientific evelopment and human well-being, together with important tools, capital, ideas and talents. High-quality research needs to be conducted in appropriate contexts characterized by adequate inner organization and attention to social demands for education and innovation. A crucial point of my reflection is exactly the recognition of the close link existing between the quality of education/research and the organization of the university system. Education and research are shaped by a variety of factors inextricably connected with innovation and with the organizational skills of universities. If considered in their retroactive effects, moreover, education and research are driving forces for the development and high qualification of universities and society itself; they are also, in different ways, producers of goods that enrich society and are of benefit to it as a whole, in addition to benefiting researchers, teachers and learners.