(v.l.) The year 2010 has witnessed the start of a new phase for the Humanistic Hub of Fondazione Bruno Kessler (FBK), consisting of the Centre for Italian-German Historical Studies and of the Centre for Religious Studies.

In the wake of the already accomplished reorganization of the scientific and technological area of the Foundation, as a result of its transformation from ITC (Istituto Trentino di Cultura) into FBK, the humanistics area is now ready for relaunching. The action programme, signed by the president of FBK, Andrea Zanotti, and by two of its directors, Antonio Autiero and Gian Enrico Rusconi, was examined and approved by FBK’s BoD during yesterday’s meeting.
The new organization envisages the upkeeping of dedicated and specific areas belonging to each Centre as well as of a wide common front for the united design and construction of new domains of research. In short, the main objective is that both research centres work together on a common ground aimed at strengthening and multiplying the critical mass and knowledge-base of the humanistic hub as a whole. The research domains identified are “secularization”, that contains both an historical and a theological matrix, and “public space” in which the themes of “territoriality” and of “convergence of various types of scientific knowledge” will be addressed. As regards the first domain, a design platform will be defined for the secularization theme that, in the name of the Council of Trent, endowed the city with a principle of identification that still lives on today. The second domain envisages the study of the new European movement hovering between nationality and localization of interests, a prospect in which small, closely knit and autonomous territories such as Trentino take centre stage. Other projects under way concern the study of Trentino in its political, social, economic and cultural dimension set astride the modern and the contemporary eras, and research on the convergence of various types of knowledge and of scientific disciplines as a path towards the building of a sustainable future.
As regards the organization, the projects shall be assigned to research units coordinated by seniors or by contract professors, according to guidelines set by the managements and approved by the competent bodies. The Directors shall remain in charge of overall and strategic management of the Centre’s life. Other European research organizations shall act as organizational models of reference, such as the Max Weber Kolleg of Erfurt, the Fondazione Konrad Adenauer, the Divinity School-University of Glasgow (UK), the Center of Theological Inquiry of Princeton (USA), the IWM (Institut für die Wissenschaften des Menschen) of Vienna.
Together with the University of Trento, FBK will organize jointly managed doctorate cycles – like the ones already ongoing in the technological/scientific sector via the NAno-on-MIcro doctorate – while highly fruitful will be the joint positions of several associate and ordinary professors capable also of providing their contribution in FBK.
Special focus will be placed on international alliances and cooperation with greatly significant and important institutions, providing the chance of creating shared projects for competing for European and extra-European funding, the capacity to promote and host important events of the scientific communities of reference and the possibility of co-publishing highly significant works.
The next step shall consist in the transformation of the document into the more general Programme Agreement that Fondazione Bruno Kessler is expected to stipulate with the Autonomous Province of Trento.
During yesterday’s BoD meeting, Gian Enrico Rusconi made open the position of Director of the Centre for Italian-German Historical Studies. “The effort made in these last few months”, underlined the FBK president Andrea Zanotti, who will run the Management in the interim, “opens up to the future that is designed from the history of the two Centres, an important history that requires valorization. Within this context, Gian Enrico Rusconi’s contribution has been an important one and, although set in a period of discontinuity, this decision also contributes to the opening of a new cycle that we hope will stand up to the previous one”.