The Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean (PAM) has continued to strengthen cooperation with its Academic Platform members, by participating and contributing to various events organized by Universities and academic institutions in the last few months.
In particular, PAM granted its high patronage to the Master’s Degree in “Management of the migratory phenomenon and the integration process”, which was launched by the Department of Political Sciences of the University of Bari “Aldo Moro” on 19 March 2018. Senator Francesco Amoruso, PAM Honorary President, and Ambassador Sergio Piazzi, PAM Secretary General, intervened at the event. The conference provided an excellent opportunity to discuss the establishment of an active partnership between PAM and the Italian State Attorney’s Office.
The Master intends to provide, on the one hand, a thorough knowledge of the scientific debate for the study of the migratory phenomenon in a multi-disciplinary perspective and, on the other hand, the acquisition of operational and professional tools that are essential for an optimal use of migrants’ integration services in Italy.
The Project Evaluation Laboratory of the University of Salerno hosted a three days Workshop, from 27 to 29 March 2018, focusing on the Belt Road Initiative. The workshop, held under the auspices of PAM, was jointly conducted with the University of Shanghai, with contributions provided by other universities and international institutions.
Participants agreed to establish a program bringing together individuals and academic centres around the Mediterranean region to carry out research, education and business on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), within the PAM Academic Platform. This project is to link universities, organisations and companies interested in BRI in Southern Europe and the MENA region, serving as a platform to carry out research and offer postgraduate education on economics and related fields.
PAM entrusted PEL/University of Salerno with the task of implementing the relevant academic and educational actions concerning the BRI initiative. Further actions will involve other international and regional institutions and member states, such as Morocco, in the educational project at the basis of PAM’s Academic Platform, as well as the key components of PAM’s Economic Panel aimed at fostering trade facilitation, PPP and support to investments.
Professor Elena Merino, Director of the Program of Architecture at the University Nebrija of Madrid, Spain, has joined the PAM Academic Platform, as a Spanish member and expert of cultural heritage in the field of Architecture. This is relevant in view of the implementation by PAM of the UNSC Resolution 2347 of 24 March 2017 on cultural heritage, aiming at the safeguarding of the archaeological and artistic heritage of Mediterranean countries.
Within the activities of its Economic Panel and Academic Platform, PAM will also organize, in cooperation with the Barcelona-based secretariat of the UfM, a conference on Education, Vocational Training, and the Labour Market. The meeting will take place in the second semester of 2018 in the Western Balkans.
Moreover, 2018 also marks the 10th Anniversary of the PAM Fez Program, which builds on a series of activities in the field of higher education aimed at fostering cooperation and understanding amongst PAM Member States as a whole region. For this occasion, PAM will organize a conference on Higher Education, to be held in the city of Fez, Morocco, tentatively in December 2018.