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WS.VII Remembering Luigi Nicolais, his impact in the scientific world and his legacy 17 September |
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| Luigi (Gino) Nicolais (1942–2026) shaped Italian materials science across half a century, from polymers and composites to biomaterials. Professor of Polymer Technology at the University of Naples Federico II and later professor emeritus, he began his career as a researcher at the CNR and went on to found and direct its Institute for Composite and Biomedical Materials, teaching for two decades also in the United States, at the University of Washington and the University of Connecticut. He held that materials research should be judged by what it changes outside the laboratory, and he acted on that conviction from every position he occupied: founder and president of the IMAST technological district from 2004, regional councillor for research, universities and innovation in Campania from 2000 to 2005, Minister for Reforms and Innovation in Public Administration from 2006 to 2008, member of the Chamber of Deputies until 2012, President of the CNR from 2012 to 2016, president of Città della Scienza, and latterly Italy's representative on the European Innovation Council and European Innovation Ecosystems programme committees. This workshop brings both sides of that record to NanoInnovation, in two sessions. The first looks outward, to what his work produced beyond the university. The second turns to the man and to the research still under way in the groups and communities he formed. The aim is to take stock of what he left in progress rather than to close an account. |
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| 17 September | ||||||||
| FRESCOES ROOM | ||||||||
| 10:50 - 11:30 Beyond the Laboratory: Innovation and Research Policy WS.VII.1 - IS.II.C |
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| Chairs: Giuseppe MENSITIERI, University of Naples Federico II & Luigi AMBROSIO, CNR | ||||||||
| This session is part of the Workshop WS.VII.1 on "Remembering Luigi Nicolais, his impact in the scientific world and his legacy". It takes up the part of Nicolais's record that lies outside the university. He built a technological district around the engineering of polymer and composite materials, carried research and innovation into regional and then national government, and presided over the CNR at a time when the Italian research system was being reorganised. The session asks what those experiences established — how research becomes enterprise, and how a national research body can be governed — and under what conditions they can be repeated in a landscape that has since changed considerably. |
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| WS.VII.1.1 IS.II.C.1 |
Giuseppe MENSITIERI University of Naples Federico II For a sustainable Engineering inspired by Gino Nicolais. The Department of Excellence project: ‘Safe and Sustainable by Design |
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| WS.VII.1.2 IS.II.C.2 |
Alessandro SANNINO - CV University of Salento From an Hydrogel to an Innovation Ecosystem: The Visionary Legacy of Luigi Nicolais |
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| WS.VII.1.3 IS.II.C.3 |
Luigi AMBROSIO - CV CNR Luigi Nicolais and the CNR: Vision, Leadership and Research Policy |
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| 11:30 - 13:00 Academic and Institutional Legacy: Remembering Luigi Nicolais, his impact in the scientific world and his legacy WS.VII.2 - TT.VI.H |
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| Chairs: Giuseppe MENSITIERI, University of Naples Federico II & Luigi AMBROSIO, CNR | ||||||||
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The second session turns to the university and to the work still under way. Nicolais taught at Federico II across his entire career, sat in its academic government and presided over its Polo delle Scienze e delle Tecnologie, founded and directed a CNR institute, and held chairs abroad; the school of researchers formed around him is the most durable of the institutions he built. The session sets out that academic and institutional profile, then follows the lines of enquiry that originated in his work and continue to develop in the groups he shaped. What is offered is a state of the work in progress, not a commemoration. |
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| WS.VII.2.1 TT.VI.H.1 |
Giuseppe MENSITIERI - CV University of Naples Federico II Luigi Nicolais: Academic, Political and Institutional Legacy |
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| WS.VII.2.2 TT.VI.H.2 |
Luigi TORRE - CV University of Perugia Development and characterization of composites and nanocomposite for space applications and thermal protection |
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| WS.VII.2.3 TT.VI.H.3 |
Pier Luca MAFFETTONE - CV University of Naples Federico II Microfluidic Control of Nanoscale Stereocomplexation in Poly(lactic acid) |
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| WS.VII.2.4 TT.VI.H.4 |
Luigi AMBROSIO - CV CNR Engineering Biomaterials for Enhancing Musco-scheletal Tissue Regeneration |
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Back to Overview | Go to Plan 17 September |  |