Urso: “Italy ready for new global challenges”
The Committee for Aerospace Policies (Comint) met today at Palazzo Chigi, chaired by Adolfo Urso, Minister for Enterprise and Made in Italy with responsibility for space and aerospace programmes, and approved the appointment of the new President and the Board of administration ofItalian Space Agency (But).
The new president is Teodoro Valente, current director of the Institute for Polymers, Composites and Biomaterials of the CNR. Valente, who takes over from Giorgio Saccoccia, boasts many years of experience as a full professor at the La Sapienza University of Rome and also served in the Research and Development Directorate of the EU Commission. The new President also had work experience in the private sector. The new Board of Directors was appointed with Valente and will be composed of Giuseppe Basini, Marica Branchesi, Stefano Gualandris, Marco Lisi, Luisa Riccardi and Elda Turco Bulgherini, with an even more significant and qualified female representation.
The minister bear in thanking the previous President of ASI, he greeted the president and the new board of directors and wished them good work. “I am particularly satisfied with the full synergy with the other ministries with which we have shared high-profile professional and scientific appointments – said the Minister – which will allow ASI to better face the demanding challenges awaiting our Agency also on a bilateral and multilateral level. Commitments that also concern an effective and significant use of the huge funding assigned to ASI, both as transfers to the programs of the European Space Agency, and on the internal front with ordinary funds and those made available by the PNRR. Italy – continued the Minister – is a global leader in the space sector and we are ready to confirm this leadership for the benefit of the Italian industrial chain and related research and development”.
Finally, Minister Urso recalled that the debate has begun with the public and private players in the sector for the elaboration of a bill draft which will quickly define the entire “governance” National on Space. “Italy – underlined Urso – unlike other EU and global countries, it lacks this essential regulatory framework, and we expect to fill this gap by early next year”.
Space-related issues will be among the topics at the center of the Minister’s next mission to the US. Urso will in fact have contacts with the National Space Council and with the major American commercial companies in the sector. Goal is the strengthening collaboration between the USA and Italy in the space sector.