UNESCO Chairs at the University of Florence

The Chair's work of higher education, research and international cooperation is centered on The historical challenge of the planetary civilization, which gives the title to the general project approved by UNESCO for the four-year period 2017/2021.  The subtitle delimits its transdisciplinary areas and levels, Towards the Earth's Humanism, in search of the "co-science" and "co-growth" beyond the violence, which are divided into three macro-programs: The Complex Research, The Earth Citizenship. The Care of the Common House. These are deepened through specific projects, carried out in a network in the territories-laboratories of experimentation, modeling, transfer and international dissemination. The entire work of the Chair refers to the Sustainible Development Goals of the United Nations 2030 Agenda, in connection with UNESCO's Priority Actions. 

The Chair, directed at the time of its establishment by Paolo Orefice, professor emeritus of General and Social Pedagogy, is one of the few of a transdisciplinary nature of the Unitwin Program to deal with human development in line with the culture of peace from the point of view of the formation of human beings: through the focuses and models of human development and culture of peace developed and tested in over a decade of international cooperation,  on the basis of the previous long experience of scientific, theoretical and applied work of its Director, the Chair operates through Participatory Action Research on the fundamental interaction of the intangible development of the knowledge of people, groups and cultures with the tangible development of man-made territories. Hence the priority character of the educational enhancement of knowledge in planetary coexistence beyond the logic of opposites, which generates violence. 

The Chair is the first in this field that Italy has proposed within UNESCO and set up in 2016 by Nicola Casagli of the Department of Earth Sciences (DST), chairholder, and Fabio Castelli of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (DICEA). The current chairholder is Nicola Casagli, who succeded Paolo Canuti.

Deputy Chairholder: Veronica Tofani (DST) and Fabio Castelli (DICEA). Program Coordinators: Enrica Caporali (DICEA), Silvia Bianchini (DST) and Chiara Arrighi (DICEA). The academics of the University involved in this project include Sandro Moretti and Carlo Alberto Garzonio (DST) and Giorgio Federici, Enio Paris and Fabio Castelli (DICEA).

The University of Florence has long been involved in research, development and cooperation for the prevention and reduction of hydrogeological risks, also in relation to the protection of UNESCO World Heritage sites. The University has received important awards for these activities, such as the designation of "Center for National Civil Protection" in 2005 and the title of the UN-ISDR Worldwide Center for International Excellence on Landslides, held since 2008.

The research group from which the initiative of the UNESCO Chair was born has in recent years participated in numerous missions to protect cultural assets threatened by hydrogeological hazards in developing countries, including Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Jordan, Albania, North Korea, Bolivia, Peru (Machu Picchu), Ethiopia, Egypt.

The UNESCO Chair is supported by the Presidency of the Council of Ministers (Department of Civil Protection and Italiasicura), the Institute for the Protection of Environmental Protection (ISPRA), the International Consortium on Landslides (ICL), the International Consortium for Disaster Reduction (ICGdR), UNITWIN - landslide risk mitigation network - and the UNESCO Chair on Water Management and Water Culture.

The chair-established to foster the exchange and circulation of knowledge between academia and society at large, lending an international dimension to a university teaching and research program-has as its holder Mauro Agnoletti, professor of Landscape Planning and Landscape and Environment History, at the Department of Agriculture, Food, Environment and Forestry (DAGRI).

The initiative aims to promote an integrated system of research, training, and documentation on world agricultural heritage landscapes, contributing positively to the strengthening of regional, national, and international expertise in higher education on this topic. The chair's goals also include planning, conservation and enhancement of rural heritage, in line with international sustainable development goals.