Italy’s new ambassador to Uzbekistan Piergabriele Papadia de Bottini, together with Uzbekistan’s Deputy Minister of Geology Azam Kadirkhodjaev and University of Pisa advisor Marco Farci, visited the University of Pisa’s branch in Tashkent in recent days. The ambassador spoke with faculty members of the University of Pisa, 140 Uzbek students and staff of the UniPi Branch, and had the opportunity to appreciate the quality of the decentralized headquarters of the University of Pisa and the degree program in Geology, the first course of study of an Italian university accredited in a foreign location by the MUR.
The international cooperation project between the University of Pisa and Uzbekistan began in 2019 with the first meetings between representatives of the University of Pisa and those of the Uzbek government, and was first made concrete with the signing of an agreement in July 2022, then with the subsequent launch of the propaedeutic year reserved for some 60 female students. Each year a team of faculty members from the Department of Earth Sciences teach transfer courses in the Tashkent Branch. The Geology degree program aims to train cultural and professional profiles with an Italian degree to meet the demands of the Uzbek and other Central Asian labor markets, especially in the fields of research and sustainable management of energy and mineral georesources. The language training of the students, with classes all in English, is verified by the University Language Center (CLI).
The educational offerings of the Tashkent branch are set to grow in the coming years: in fact, a “Double degree MSc in Geology” is planned to be activated in collaboration with the University of Geological Sciences, as well as the expansion of the preparatory year in order to provide Uzbek students with the necessary propaedeuticity for subsequent matriculation in the Bachelor of Science in Management for Business ancd Economics in Pisa.
