GLAM/Newsletter/August 2025/Contents/Italy report
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From food festivals to PhD courses: Wikimedia in Italian academia
Academic collaborations in Italy
Two recent university initiatives in Italy have once again shown how Wikimedia projects can be successfully integrated into higher education and research training.
At the Politecnico di Milano, the ninth edition of the doctoral course Science, Technology, Society and Wikipedia (7–11 July 2025) engaged 38 PhD candidates of multiple nationalities in a full week of hands-on work with Wikipedia, Commons, and Wikidata. Supported by Wikimedia Italia trainers, participants created or improved 43 Wikipedia articles in English, Italian, and Chinese, contributed over 120 media files to Commons, and enriched numerous Wikidata entities. A public dashboard tracks the outcomes. Now in its ninth year, the course has become a reference model for integrating open knowledge practices into doctoral education, and its format has already inspired similar projects abroad.
Meanwhile, at the University of Bologna (Forlì Campus), the GIARA project (Gastronomy and Artificial Intelligence for an inclusive Romagna) included a blended seminar on Wikipedia writing (June–July 2025). Eight MA students in Specialized Translation, together with staff and international partners, focused on improving coverage of Romagnol gastronomy on the Italian Wikipedia. Through datathons and fieldwork at the Festa Artusiana food festival, they created or expanded 23 articles, many of them newly illustrated with images uploaded to Commons. All contributions are documented in a dedicated category.
Both initiatives demonstrate how Wikimedia projects can serve simultaneously as pedagogical tools and vehicles for public engagement, while generating high-quality, openly accessible content in specialized domains.
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