It is a week full of initiatives for the Strategic Alliance of Catholic Research Universities (SACRU), the international network of Catholic universities of which Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore is a founding member and hosts the Secretariat.
SACRU is a network of universities committed to excellence in research and teaching, global engagement and collaboration, inspired by Catholic social doctrine. SACRU’s strategic objective is to develop global cooperation among partners to promote world-class knowledge and higher education for the common good.
From Oct 27 to 31, SACRU will participate in the Jubilee of the World of Education through the Autumn School study days entitled “The Freedom of Scientific Research”, held on the Rome campus of the Australian Catholic University (Largo Berchet, 4), which will be attended by 14 PhD students from eight member universities of the Alliance.
“This initiative is very important to us because we believe that through the best training of the next generations of researchers and scholars, we can truly contribute to the prosperity of the common good in the world,” commented Isabel Capeloa Gil, President of the Alliance for the 2025-2028 term and Rector of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa. “Issues such as integrity and freedom of research, in an increasingly polarised world, are crucial to scientific progress and will enable society not to doubt but to trust scientific research.”
As Pier Sandro Cocconcelli, Secretary General of SACRU and Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences at Università Cattolica, stated, “To create a truly effective network of Research Universities, it is essential to involve young people. Only with new generations of researchers—the real driving force behind research—can we develop a solid and innovative network that promotes advanced research across various fields of knowledge. Addressing contemporary challenges requires researchers who not only deepen their own areas of study but also engage in dialogue with other disciplines, cultivating a transdisciplinary perspective that fosters innovation, creativity and collaboration. The Autumn School in Rome was created with this very objective in mind.”
The initiatives continue beyond the Autumn School. On Wednesday Oct 29, at 5.30 pm, at Villa Lusa, the residence of the Portuguese Embassy to the Holy See (Via San Valentino, 9), SACRU will be presented to diplomatic representatives to the Holy See and other institutional interlocutors.
On Thursday Oct 30, the network will participate in the Global Educational Village with an information stand (Sala Pio X, Via dell’Ospedale).
Finally, on Friday Oct 31, the delegation of Rectors, Pro-Rectors and other professors from the nine member universities of the Alliance will participate in the Holy Father’s general audience alongside the Autumn School students. In the afternoon, future activities and projects will be presented at the Global Educational Village. – Vatican News
