The X-Culture Global Business Week has begun in Trieste, transforming the city into a global international business laboratory until 8 August. For the first time, the University of Trieste is hosting and organising the final event of a programme that brings together universities, students and businesses through hands-on experience in developing business projects and multicultural collaboration.

The Trieste edition, organised by the Department of Economics, Business, Mathematics and Statistics “Bruno de Finetti” – DEAMS together with X-Culture’s international organising committee, brings together almost 150 selected students from 36 countries, alongside academics, researchers, managers and professionals from different continents.

The plenary sessions are taking place at MIB Trieste School of Management, a partner of the event, while the awards ceremony will be held on Friday, 7 August, during the closing evening, which will also include a gala dinner in Piazzale Europa.

The event marks the culmination of an international educational programme that is unique in both scale and structure. Since its launch in 2010, X-Culture has involved more than 130,000 students from 701 universities and 115 countries, organised into over 16,000 international teams. Participants work remotely, communicating in English across different time zones, cultures and academic backgrounds to develop solutions to real-world challenges set by companies around the globe.

Some of the best-performing students in the 2026 edition have travelled to Trieste after being selected on the basis of the results achieved during the international online phase. They include seven students from the University of Trieste, whose participation is supported by DEAMS and the Fondazione Pietro Pittini, which has long been committed to promoting educational and international opportunities for young people.

The initiative’s Lead Host is Rector Donata Vianelli, Professor of International and Cross-Cultural Marketing, who over the past fifteen years has involved more than 700 University of Trieste students in the project.

“Global Business Week offers students an experience that reflects the complexity of international work in a very tangible way: people with different languages, cultures and backgrounds are called upon to work together to develop solutions for real companies. At the same time, initiatives of this kind strengthen Trieste’s role as an international platform for education and innovation, capable of attracting talent, building connections with the business community and contributing to the economic development of the local area through the University’s global outlook,” said Donata Vianelli.

The organisation directly involves UniTS academics Guido Bortoluzzi, who is also Academic Director of MIB’s MBA in International Business, Andrea Tracogna, who also serves as Dean of MIB, and Rubina Romanello, together with researcher Chiara Marinelli, MIB lecturer Stefano Pilotto, the University’s administrative staff and around ten students involved in preparing and managing the event.

Universities and companies working together on real-world challenges

A central feature of Global Business Week is the collaboration between the University and its partner companies and organisations, some of which represent the economic and cultural fabric of Friuli Venezia Giulia: Assicurazioni Generali, Barilla, Modiano, Fondazione ITS – International Talent Support, Associazione Caffè Trieste and Genuino.

Students are engaging directly with managers and professionals and are being asked to develop analyses, strategies and potential solutions to the real cases and challenges presented by the partner organisations.

This collaboration enables international students to learn more about local businesses, supply chains and organisations, while giving the participating partners the opportunity to gather ideas and perspectives developed by talented young people from a wide range of cultural and academic backgrounds.

Internationally renowned academics

Among the most influential academics attending the event in Trieste is Vasyl “Vas” Taras, Professor of International Business at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, founder of X-Culture and one of the leading experts on multicultural teams and global working groups collaborating remotely.

The event also involves 22 international business academics and experts from universities and institutions in several countries. They include Richard Griffith, Professor of Industrial and Organisational Psychology at the Florida Institute of Technology and Director of the Institute for Culture, Collaboration and Management. His areas of expertise range from international management and cross-cultural collaboration to the development of the skills required to work in complex international environments.

A week working as international consultants

During Global Business Week, participants meet company representatives, analyse the challenges assigned to them, visit company premises and other organisations, and take part in workshops, training sessions and mentoring activities with international academics.

The teams will develop their proposals and submit them to the faculty for an initial assessment and further refinement. At the end of the week, they will present their strategic recommendations to company representatives and an international panel of academics. The best solutions will be recognised during the closing awards ceremony.

The programme also includes opportunities to discover Trieste, its scientific community and its economic and international history.

The event is supported by ARDiS – the Regional Agency for the Right to Higher Education, Fondazione Pietro Pittini, illycaffè, MIB Trieste School of Management, the Autonomous Region of Friuli Venezia Giulia and Trieste Trasporti. Upon their arrival in Trieste, the international group of students and academics was also welcomed by Confcommercio Trieste and FIPE.

Determining whether a gene is mutated in a tumour may not be enough. In many cases, it is also important to know how many copies of that mutated gene are present in the cancer cells and how strongly this alteration affects the behaviour of the disease.

This is the starting point of the study led by Giulio Caravagna, Professor of Computer Science at the University of Trieste and head of the Cancer Data Science Laboratory, published in Nature Genetics. The researchers proposed a new way of reading tumour DNA that more closely reflects the true complexity of cancer: mutations are considered not only in terms of whether they are present or absent, but also in relation to the tumour's overall genomic architecture.

In cancer cells, somatic mutations - those that arise during a person's lifetime in cells other than germ cells - can combine with changes in DNA copy number. As a result, some regions of the genome may be amplified while others are lost. The combination of mutations, amplifications and losses of genomic regions gives rise to the concept of gene mutant dosage. The aim is to estimate how many mutated copies of a gene are actually present in a tumour and assess whether this information has implications for prognosis and metastatic spread.

To address this question, the research team developed INCOMMON - INference of COpy number and Mutation Multiplicity in ONcology - an open-source computational method that estimates the number of mutated copies of a gene and mutation multiplicity from targeted sequencing panels routinely used in clinical oncology.

One of its most significant features is the ability to derive new information from data already generated during diagnostic workflows. INCOMMON uses advanced statistical inference and machine-learning models to interpret the results of clinical molecular tests in the light of large collections of tumours sequenced at whole-genome level.

“INCOMMON represents a new approach to obtaining higher-resolution analyses than current standards, without changing the type of data generated. This new opportunity reveals features of oncogenic processes that may prove relevant from a prognostic and predictive perspective,” explains Giulio Caravagna.

In the study, supported in part by the AIRC Foundation for Cancer Research, the researchers analysed more than 60,000 clinical patient samples, covering 39 different cancer types and over 500,000 mutations. By stratifying more than 20,000 patients according to the mutant dosage of different oncogenes and tumour suppressor genes, the team identified 46 cancer-specific biomarkers associated with overall survival.

The most significant finding is that 13 of these biomarkers, across 12 cancer types, would not have been detected using conventional models based solely on whether a gene is mutated or not. Gene mutant dosage can therefore reveal prognostic signals that a simpler reading of tumour DNA may miss.

The findings also provide new insight into the metastatic behaviour of tumours. In particular, the researchers identified 26 biomarkers recurrently associated with metastatic spread in 10 cancer types, as well as 20 biomarkers whose presence predicts a tumour's tendency to spread to specific organs in five cancer types.

“The data collected in this study show that genomic information already contained in molecular analyses routinely performed in clinical practice can be reinterpreted with far greater precision using advanced statistical inference and machine-learning systems,” says Nicola Calonaci, an AIRC-funded postdoctoral researcher at the University of Trieste and co-first author of the paper.

“One particularly interesting aspect is that gene mutant dosage seems to capture biological properties of tumours that do not emerge when mutations are treated simply as present or absent,” adds Eriseld Krasniqi, a medical oncologist at the IRCCS Regina Elena National Cancer Institute in Rome, a University of Trieste PhD candidate and co-first author of the paper. “This is especially relevant to the study of metastasis, where it has historically been very difficult to identify genomic features that distinguish primary from metastatic tumours.”

“This research is an excellent example of how collaboration between highly specialised clinical centres and computational research groups can translate into knowledge that benefits cancer patients,” says Giovanni Blandino, Scientific Director of the IRCCS Regina Elena National Cancer Institute (IRE) in Rome. “IRE's participation in a study of this scale reflects our commitment to working at the frontier of translational research, where clinical expertise meets the most advanced technologies for genomic data analysis. Extracting new information from molecular tests already available in clinical practice is one of the most promising directions for precision oncology, and an area in which we intend to continue investing.”

The work also opens the way for future studies integrating information on the treatments received by patients, to determine whether gene mutant dosage has not only prognostic value but also predictive value for response to specific therapies.

Further validation will be required before any potential clinical implementation. The direction indicated by the research is nevertheless clear: to make better use of information already available in molecular data, in order to understand disease evolution and contribute to the development of new biomarkers for precision oncology.

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STUDY PUBLISHED IN NATURE GENETICS, 31 JULY 2026

Gene mutant dosage is associated with prognosis and metastatic tropism in 60,000 clinical cancer samples

Nicola Calonaci1,†, Eriseld Krasniqi2,†, Daniel Colic3, Stefano Scalera4, Giorgia Gandolfi1, Salvatore Milite5, Konstantin Bräutigam6,7, Andrea Sottoriva5, Trevor A. Graham6, Leonardo Egidi8, Biagio Ricciuti9, Marcello Maugeri-Saccà10, and Giulio Caravagna1,11

1 Department of Mathematics, Informatics and Geosciences, University of Trieste, Italy
2 Phase IV Clinical Studies Unit, IRCCS Regina Elena National Cancer Institute, 00144 Rome, Italy
3 Institute for Research in Biomedicine, Barcelona, Spain
4 Clinical Trial Center, Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Division, IRCCS Regina Elena National Cancer Institute, Rome, Italy
5 Computational Biology Research Centre, Human Technopole, Milan, Italy
6 Centre for Evolution and Cancer, Institute of Cancer Research, London, United Kingdom
7 Institute of Medical Genetics and Pathology, University Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland
8 Department of Economics, Business, Mathematics and Statistics “Bruno de Finetti”, University of Trieste, Italy
9 Lowe Center for Thoracic Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
10 Division of Medical Oncology 2, IRCCS Regina Elena National Cancer Institute, Rome, Italy
11 Area Science Park, Trieste, Italy
† These authors contributed equally.

DOI: 10.1038/s41588-026-02666-z

The University of Trieste has inaugurated its first Study&Share classroom, a new learning environment designed to meet the evolving needs of its student community, where individual study is complemented by collaboration, social interaction and knowledge sharing.

Located in Building C9 on the Piazzale Europa Campus, the new classroom has been conceived as a flexible, informal and adaptable space that can accommodate different activities throughout the day. Students will be able to study individually or in groups, work on collaborative projects, meet with classmates, have lunch and enjoy breaks in a welcoming environment featuring modular furniture and up-to-date technology that can be easily reconfigured to suit different needs.

"This new type of classroom was created by listening to our students' needs, and we are delighted to provide them with this flexible space," said Rector Donata Vianelli. "Once the 'UniTS Renewed' redevelopment project is completed, our students will have access to numerous environments that encourage social interaction and the exchange of ideas, fully aligned with the needs of contemporary higher education."

The inauguration of the classroom marks the first milestone of "UniTS Renewed", the University's redevelopment programme aimed at modernising learning spaces and enhancing campus life.

By spring 2027, additional Study&Share classrooms of varying sizes and layouts will be created, all sharing the same vision: to provide spaces that foster not only learning, but also interaction, dialogue and a strong sense of belonging to the University community.

The overall plan includes the refurbishment of 25 classrooms, providing a total of 2,256 student seats across four University campuses, as well as the renovation of 30 study, reading and break areas, for a total of 894 upgraded seats.

The University of Trieste played a leading role in the success of iNEST – Interconnected Nord-Est Innovation Ecosystem, one of the major Innovation Ecosystems funded under Italy's National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), which has now concluded having fully achieved all of its project objectives. The final report by the independent scientific reviewers confirms the successful completion of all planned activities, recognizing the initiative's significant scientific, economic, and societal impact.

The University of Trieste played a key role in Spoke 8, dedicated to maritime, marine, and inland water technologies, developed in collaboration with the Alto Adriatico Technology Hub, the Eastern Adriatic Sea Port Authority, OGS - Istituto Nazionale di Oceanografia e di Geofisica Sperimentale, and the Universities of Padua, Trento, Ca' Foscari Venice, and IUAV University of Venice.

The project addressed some of the most pressing challenges related to environmental sustainability and climate resilience in the Upper Adriatic region, leveraging the area's extensive scientific expertise while promoting knowledge transfer to industry.

Spoke 8 focused on five strategic research areas: marine ecosystem biology; the management of physical and chemical hazards and their impact on the hydrosphere; sustainable coastal transport; integrated land-sea planning; and the development of the Upper Adriatic Digital Twin. By integrating environmental data, predictive models, artificial intelligence algorithms, and advanced visualization systems, the project developed innovative decision-support tools with significant benefits for the sustainable management of coastal areas.

Alongside its research activities, the project placed strong emphasis on technology transfer. In this context, it developed a digital platform designed to connect researchers, businesses, and investors, as well as a scientific and technological information service aimed at disseminating funding opportunities, research results, and best practices across the ecosystem.

A central hub for these activities was the Lab Village, hosted at the Urban Center in Trieste. Conceived as a meeting place for researchers, companies, startups, and public institutions, it was established to accelerate innovation processes and foster new collaborations.

More broadly, iNEST's achievements highlight both the scale and the effectiveness of the initiative. Over nearly four years of activity, the ecosystem produced 977 scientific publications, involved 517 researchers, supported 99 projects dedicated to early-career researchers, and, through 35 cascade funding calls, financed more than 200 projects carried out by companies, SMEs, public bodies, and regional administrations.

Roberto Di Lenarda, former Rector of the University of Trieste and current President of the Permanent Conference of Medical Academic Boards, has been awarded Honorary Membership in the National Carabinieri Association.

The certificate was presented by Colonel Gianluca Migliozzi, Provincial Commander of the Carabinieri in Trieste, during a ceremony held at the Provincial Command Headquarters. The honour recognizes Professor Di Lenarda's longstanding support for and collaboration with the Carabinieri and the initiatives promoted by the National Carabinieri Association, reflecting a strong and enduring institutional partnership.

Mapping groundwater aquifers located more than 400 metres beneath the seabed in the coastal area between Jesolo and Lignano. This was the objective of the recently completed oceanographic expedition carried out under the RESCUE project aboard the Laura Bassi research vessel of the National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics (OGS).

Coordinated by the University of Trieste, with OGS as a project partner, RESCUE aims to strengthen water security through research and innovation by identifying freshwater resources in unexplored coastal and offshore aquifers. Building on recent scientific discoveries, the project is mapping deep, low-salinity aquifers—located at depths exceeding 400 metres—both on land and beneath the seabed. At a time when freshwater resources in coastal regions are increasingly threatened by population growth, pollution and climate change, these aquifers could help supplement water supplies for drinking, agriculture and industry, while also reducing the costs associated with seawater desalination.

Researchers and students from OGS, the University of Trieste, the University of Pisa, CNR-ISMAR (Institute of Marine Sciences of the Italian National Research Council) in Bologna, the University of Malta, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI, California, USA) took part in the expedition aboard the Laura Bassi.

During the campaign, researchers carried out seismic reflection surveys to obtain high-resolution images of the subsurface beneath the seabed, together with seafloor mapping. In addition, electromagnetic surveys were conducted for the first time in the area to detect the possible presence of freshwater aquifers beneath the seabed. The investigations, which did not involve any seabed sampling, covered an area approximately 10 kilometres offshore, extending from Jesolo, in the Province of Venice, to the Tagliamento Delta off the coast of Lignano.

"The surveys were carried out under excellent environmental conditions, and all operations proceeded according to plan. The data collected are of very high quality, but several months of laboratory processing and analysis will be required before we can confirm the presence of freshwater aquifers beneath the northern Adriatic seabed," said Cristina Corradin, OGS researcher and scientific coordinator of the expedition.

"The operations required the integration of several geophysical techniques and close collaboration among the different research teams, the technical and scientific staff, and the ship's crew," explained Daniela Accettella of OGS, chief scientist aboard the Laura Bassi.

"After two years of scientific work, the RESCUE team has successfully applied innovative integrated geophysical methods for investigating deep offshore aquifers in one of the most promising study areas: the seabed of the northern Adriatic, particularly off the coast of Friuli Venezia Giulia. The new data will improve our understanding of regional groundwater resources and contribute to addressing water shortages linked to climate change and extreme events, such as the heatwave and drought currently affecting Europe," said Professor Michele Pipan of the University of Trieste, coordinator of the RESCUE project.

This oceanographic expedition has also laid the groundwork for a second research initiative funded by the European intergovernmental association JPI Oceans. Launched through a joint initiative by Malta and Italy, the new project will seek to confirm the presence of freshwater beneath the northern Adriatic seabed by drilling an offshore scientific borehole—the first of its kind in Europe. The project is coordinated by the University of Malta and involves OGS, the University of Trieste, the Alto Adriatico Technology Hub, as well as research institutions from Germany and Greece. It is funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research (MUR) and the Autonomous Region of Friuli Venezia Giulia.

RESCUE – Resources in Coastal Groundwater Under Hydroclimatic Extremes is a project co-funded by the Water4All Partnership and the European Union. It addresses water scarcity in coastal regions by investigating deep groundwater resources located both onshore and beneath the seabed. The project focuses on mapping these resources, assessing their long-term sustainability, and developing policy recommendations for their sustainable use.

The project is coordinated by the University of Trieste, with OGS as a partner. Other partners include the University of Derby (United Kingdom), Ruden AS (Norway), and the University of Malta.

Il professor Roberto Scarciglia, già ordinario di Diritto pubblico comparato, è stato nominato Professore Onorario dell'Università di Trieste.

Il prestigioso riconoscimento, conferito a docenti che si sono distinti per l'eccellenza dell'attività scientifica e accademica, assume un significato particolare per l'Ateneo: Scarciglia è infatti il primo docente del Dipartimento di Scienze Politiche e Sociali (DiSPeS) a esserne insignito.

La sua carriera all'Università di Trieste è iniziata nel 1996 come ricercatore ed è proseguita fino al ruolo di professore ordinario, ricoperto dal 2001 al 2021. Nel corso di oltre venticinque anni di attività ha contribuito in maniera significativa allo sviluppo del diritto pubblico comparato e alla crescita del Dipartimento, assumendo importanti responsabilità accademiche, tra cui quelle di Preside della Facoltà di Scienze Politiche, Direttore del Dipartimento di Scienze Politiche e, successivamente, del Dipartimento di Scienze Politiche e Sociali.

Studioso di riconosciuta autorevolezza nel panorama del diritto comparato, è Associate Member dell'International Academy of Comparative Law di Parigi e membro di numerose associazioni scientifiche nazionali e internazionali. Ha coordinato progetti di ricerca italiani ed europei, promosso collaborazioni accademiche con numerosi atenei stranieri e svolto attività di insegnamento e ricerca come visiting professor in prestigiose università europee, tra cui Cambridge, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Barcellona e Francoforte.

La sua attività scientifica, testimoniata da un'ampia produzione di monografie, volumi e saggi pubblicati anche da editori internazionali, ha contribuito allo sviluppo degli studi sul diritto pubblico comparato, sulla metodologia della comparazione giuridica, sul pluralismo giuridico e, negli ultimi anni, sulle implicazioni dell'intelligenza artificiale e delle nuove tecnologie per gli ordinamenti pubblici.

A research team involving the European Laboratory for Non-Linear Spectroscopy (LENS), the CNR National Institute of Optics in Sesto Fiorentino, and the Universities of Florence, Trieste and Trento has developed an innovative technique based on the propagation of sound waves to study matter under extreme conditions. The results have been published in Nature Physics.

The researchers developed an innovative technique to investigate the behaviour of quantum matter by exploiting a familiar phenomenon: the Doppler effect. When an ambulance passes us, its siren sounds higher-pitched as it approaches and lower-pitched as it moves away.

“In the same way, sound travelling through a rotating superfluid changes depending on whether it moves in the same direction as the superfluid or in the opposite direction. By detecting these minute variations, the team was able to reveal the internal structure of superfluid Fermi gases, systems made up of atoms cooled to temperatures close to absolute zero. Under these conditions, Fermi particles pair up, giving rise to superfluidity, a state of matter in which friction disappears,” explain Marcia Fròmeta Fernandez and Diego Hernandez-Rajkov, CNR-INO researchers and lead authors of the study.

“We created a ring-shaped Fermi superfluid in which sound waves travel simultaneously in opposite directions. When the superfluid is set in rotation, the two sound waves are affected differently by the flow and accumulate a tiny difference in frequency: the Doppler effect.”

By measuring this effect with extreme precision, “we demonstrated that the circulation of the superfluid around the ring cannot take arbitrary values, but only quantised, or discrete, values, determined by the ratio between Planck’s constant and the mass of the particles. In this case, these values are half those expected for individual particles,” explains Francesco Scazza, Professor of Condensed Matter Physics at the University of Trieste.

“Our observation shows that the superfluid consists of fermions that pair up, forming composite quantum units with twice the mass, known as Cooper pairs, similarly to what occurs in superconductors. The result confirms that, even in these ultracold gaseous systems, superfluidity originates from the formation of fermion pairs,” concludes Giacomo Roati, Research Director at CNR-INO and head of the experimental group.

The study confirms the potential of atom interferometry, a technique that exploits the wave-like properties of atoms to perform extremely precise measurements. In this study, the technique was implemented using sound waves in the superfluid, proving to be an effective tool for investigating strongly correlated quantum systems.

One of the first results obtained was the observation that superfluidity progressively decreases as temperature rises. The work opens up a new avenue for studying the collective behaviour of particles and gaining a deeper understanding of the mechanisms underlying superfluidity and superconductivity, as well as other still-mysterious dynamics of quantum matter that are of fundamental importance for modern quantum technologies,” conclude Massimo Inguscio of LENS and Sandro Stringari of the Pitaevskii BEC Center at the University of Trento.

Their contributions to the development of atomic physics and their scientific collaboration laid the foundations for the work carried out at the LENS laboratory. The study comes in the year marking the centenary of the statistics formulated by Enrico Fermi in 1926 on the Arcetri hills, at the University of Florence, to describe the behaviour of particles such as electrons, protons and neutrons.

The University of Trieste has confirmed its position among Italy’s most competitive universities. According to the new Censis Ranking of Italian Universities, UniTS ranks fourth among medium-sized state universities, with between 10,000 and 20,000 enrolled students. The result recognises the overall quality of the University’s academic offering and services.

The ranking is based on six indicators: scholarships, communication and digital services, internationalisation, student services, facilities and graduate employability.

More specifically, UniTS ranks second for communication and digital services, jointly with the University of Sassari and with an increase of 13 points compared with the previous edition. It ranks fifth for student services, together with Sassari and Udine, and for graduate employability, jointly with Bergamo; sixth for facilities; and seventh for scholarships, up seven points, and for internationalisation, which gained two points.

“Almost all the indicators have improved compared with the previous edition,” said Rector Donata Vianelli. “We have made particularly strong progress in scholarships and communication, while also achieving an excellent fifth place nationally for student services and employability. According to the latest AlmaLaurea Report, 86.5% of our graduates from two-year and single-cycle Master’s degree programmes are employed one year after graduation, almost six percentage points above the national average. This result recognises the quality of our education and the work carried out to build increasingly effective links with the local community and the business sector.”

The degree programme rankings, based on students’ academic progress and international relations, also highlight consistently strong performance across a range of disciplinary areas.

Among Bachelor’s degree programmes, the University of Trieste ranks first nationally among state universities in the language group, which includes the degree classes in Modern Languages and Cultures and Language Mediation, and second in Computer Science and ICT Technologies. UniTS also achieved strong results in the scientific group, where it ranks fourth, and in the political, social and communication group, where it ranks fifth. The economics group, in seventh place, psychology, in eighth, and literature and humanities, in tenth, also rank among the national top ten.

Among two-year Master’s degree programmes, the education and training group entered the national top ten with a score of 92.5. In the rankings for single-cycle Master’s degree programmes, UniTS ranks third in Pharmacy and Industrial Pharmacy, while Law and Medicine and Surgery both place among the national top ten.

Now in its twenty-sixth edition, the Censis Ranking of Italian Universities is based on more than 960 variables and includes 70 separate rankings. The overall assessment divides universities into comparable categories according to size, while the degree programme rankings compare the different groupings of degree classes at national level.

Maria Carolina Foi, Full Professor of German Literature at the Department of Humanities of the University of Trieste, has been elected a member of the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung (German Academy for Language and Literature).

Founded in 1949 and based in Darmstadt, the Academy brings together writers, scholars, and intellectuals who have made outstanding contributions to German-language culture. Its membership also includes jurists and scientists distinguished by their literary sensitivity. Among its members have been figures such as Hannah Arendt, Jürgen Habermas, Ingeborg Bachmann, and Elias Canetti. The Academy also awards the Georg Büchner Prize, the most prestigious lifetime literary award for authors writing in German.

After beginning her academic studies in Law at the University of Padua, Maria Carolina Foi graduated in German Literature from the University of Trieste under the supervision of Claudio Magris.

She subsequently received prestigious research fellowships from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the Austrian Federal Ministry for Arts and Culture, and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. She also served as an External Senior Fellow at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies. Since 2008, she has been Full Professor of German Literature at the University of Trieste. Her main research interests include the relationship between literature and law, Viennese Modernism, and Italian-German cultural transfer. She has translated and edited Italian editions of classics by authors including Heinrich Heine and Friedrich Schiller.

From 2020 to 2024, she served as Distinguished Director of the Italian Cultural Institute in Berlin, appointed by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. In 2025, she joined the jury of the Deutscher Buchpreis, Germany's most prestigious annual award for the best German-language novel.

Her election to the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung confirms Professor Foi's international standing and represents a source of particular pride for the University of Trieste, whose excellence in research has been recognised by one of Europe's most prestigious cultural institutions.