The winners of the first edition of the “Renato Ugo” scholarships

AIRI’s Industrial Innovation Day 2021 included the conferral of Renato Ugo prize scholarships to talented students of STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics).The five scholarships, two of which are sponsored by the Bracco Foundation in connection with its ProgettoDiventrò initiative for young people, are named in memory of Professor Renato Ugo, a luminary of Italian chemistry. Chair of AIRI in 1983-2019 and professor of General and Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Milan, Renato Ugo was also a member of the Accademia dei Lincei and the author of hundreds of papers published in international journals.

The conferral ceremony followed introductory remarks by Diana Bracco, Marco Zibellini (Farmindustria) and Lucio Pinto (Fondazione Silvio Tronchetti Provera).

The winners were presented their awards by the Minister of Universities and Research, Professor Cristina Messa. In keeping with its pledge to promoting female talent, the Bracco Foundation funded the scholarships awarded to:

• Sofia Selmi, in the field of Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Technologies, for her project: “Development of an innovative drug release system for the treatment of inflammatory diseases: smart delivery of palmitoylethanolamide”
• Katia Galli, in the field of Industrial Chemistry, for her project “Formulation of a detergent product with alternative surfactants to sodium lauryl ether sulphate (SLES)”

“Our nation’s companies are suffering from the dearth of young people, especially of young women, with technical-scientific skills" observed Diana Bracco. “So I am particularly happy to see that the jury picked three girls among the five winners. This is significant, for female participation in the world of science and technology is unfortunately still heavily marred by gender bias and stereotyping. Consider, for instance, that in the artificial intelligence industry, just 31% of the workforce is female, while in cloud computing it is a mere 14%."

To encourage girls to enter the sciences and counter the gender stereotypes that still sharply limit their participation, the Bracco Foundation has launched a “Mind the STEM Gap Manifesto”

>> To read, share and sign the Manifesto click here.