Dear Students, Colleagues, Friends,

With the intention to express our deepest concern for the fate of our many Ukrainian colleagues and students, an appeal was jointly submitted to our Academic Senate (held yesterday, February 22) by:

• Our Rector, Prof. Edoardo Alesse,
• The Head of the DISIM (Department of Information Engineering, Computer Science and Mathematics), Prof. Guido Proietti,
• And myself, Vice Rector for International Affairs and coordinator of the InterMaths Consortium.

The official appeal is available on the UnivAQ website at this link: https://www.univaq.it/news_home.php?id=16042

An English version can be found below.

“The DISIM, and through it the University of L'Aquila, has had deep and fruitful bilateral cooperation relations with Ukrainian universities for many years, in particular with

• Ivan Franko National University of Lviv,
• V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University,
• Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv,
• Odessa National I.I. Mechnikov University,

(which are all members of the InterMaths Double Degree Consortium for the award of a double degree),

• as well as with the Lviv Polytechnic National University.

It is thus with great apprehension that we are witnessing the intensification of armed manoeuvres on the borders and in the East of the country, not only because of the looming threats of a start of hostilities that would inevitably translate into a humanitarian tragedy, but also with concrete thoughts turned to our students of the InterMaths programme and their families, to the colleagues with whom we have had the opportunity to interact over the years, and to whom we are bound by deep feelings of esteem and friendship.

Therefore, in this meeting of the Academic Senate, which traditionally represents a place for dialectical confrontation, and defense of plurality and freedom in all its forms, and also an opportunity for diversity to meet, in a word the place for custody of the values of universality, we wish to firmly reiterate the importance of peace as an essential value of coexistence, tolerance and mutual understanding. We also ask for all military operations to be stopped immediately, and to restart a diplomatic path between the parties involved, in order to achieve a peaceful resolution of disputes. Finally, we hope that the Academic Senate of the University of L'Aquila, and through it the entire academic community of L'Aquila, will take up and spread this appeal for peace and solidarity between countries.”

With profound esteem,
----
Prof. Bruno Rubino
Vice Rector for International Affairs
University of L'Aquila, Italy