On 12 March 2024, the Director of the Islands and Small States Institute (ISSI) Dr Stefano Moncada, Ms Victoria Gauci, Deputy Director International Office from the University of Malta, and Prof. Aldo Berlinguer from the University of Cagliari, Italy, met at the UM’s Council Room, for the inauguration of the Institutions’ Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).

The MoU was signed in February 2024, on the initiative of the ISSI, in collaboration with the UM’s Rectorate, the International, the Legal and the Knowledge Transfer Offices.

The agreement manifests the interest of both institutions to collaborate on a number of activities, including the exchange of faculty members, as well as of publications and information regarding areas of mutual interest; and the development of joint research activities, publications, conferences, symposia, seminars and workshops. The collaboration will focus on issues of insularity, vulnerability and resilience, and in general on island studies. The agreement also links well with another initiative led by Prof. Berlinguer through the Observatory on Insularity and Inland Areas of EURISPES, again, with island studies and insularity at the centre of constitutional and public policy debates.

The University of Cagliari, UniCA, was founded in 1620 and is a public University located in the island of Sardinia. UniCA is a multidisciplinary higher education institution offering an interesting and complete education in all three cycles of the Bologna Process through six Faculties, notably Biology and Pharmacy, Engineering and Architecture, Medicine and Surgery, Sciences, Economics, Law and Political Sciences, and Humanities, as well as another 15 Departments.