Dec. 4 – “Our trip was aimed at strengthening relationships spanning many decades with Iraqi institutions. As a first step, we started in Baghdad, where, thanks to the support of the cultural section of the Embassy of Iraq in Rome, we could meet, at the Iraqi Ministry of the High Education and Scientific Research, the general manager and deputy minister to define promotional actions for Iraqi students to come study in Italy, and especially in Florence,” explained Matteo Barbari, director of the Department of Agrarian Systems, Food and Forestry Management at the University of Florence. Barbari – as stated on the website of the Tuscan university – was in Iraq in recent days with researcher Giuseppe Rossi. The focus of the mission were the relations between the University of Florence and Iraq. There are many areas in which the two exchange and collaborate: in 2005 researchers from the University of Florence were the protagonists of important international cooperation projects in the field of agricultural and livestock development and water resources management. The discussion focused on projects to support the incoming of Iraqi students, supported by Iraq’s government. In Baghdad Barbari also met with the Dean of the University of Baghdad and the Dean of the University of Alnahrain, both interested in signing cultural and scientific cooperation agreements with the University of Florence. “These contacts – explains Barbari – are part of the recent agreement with the Ministry. We already hosted 35 visiting professors,” specifies Barbari. During his journey in Iraq, Barbari traveled to the south, meeting with the Dean of the University of Dhi Qar (Nasiriya), with whom the department has been collaborating since 2007, and Basra, where a new agreement was signed, along the definition of the calendars for two new groups of visiting professors.
