This bilateral agreement provides valuable opportunities for research and exchange with one of the world's most important centres for international law, politics, economics, sociology, and international relations. Relations with the Geneva Graduate Institute will be crucial for our students and faculty, strengthening their multicultural and international outreach. We are honoured to initiate this collaboration with the scholarships in memory of Maria Rosario Lazzati Niada, and I am grateful to Professors Fabrizio Marrella and Caterina Carpinato and to our International Office for their role in finalising this prestigious agreement.

Rector Tiziana Lippiello, Universitá Ca’ Foscari.

This new agreement with University Ca'Foscari enlarges opportunities for our students and research community. Ca'Foscari is a unique University with a strong innovative engagement around contemporary global challenges that resonates with our own at the Geneva Graduate Institute. As part of this agreement, we are delighted to be cooperating on the important scholarship program for Afghan women honoring Maria Rosario Lazzati Niada.

Marie-Laure Salles, Director of the Geneva Graduate Institute.

With the addition of Universitá Ca’ Foscari, the Institute extends its network of Italian partners which already includes Università Bocconi, in Milan, LUISS, in Rome, and the European University Institute, in Florence.  

A first educational opportunity under the new partnership will take the form of a student exchange programme. As of the upcoming 2024-2025 academic year, two Master and/or PhD students from the Geneva Graduate Institute students and their counterparts at Universitá Ca’ Foscari of Venice will be able to participate in yearly study exchanges. Students will benefit from the synergies of the curriculums offered at both institutions, reinforcing the interdisciplinarity available to them.

In addition, the Geneva Graduate Institute ”Maria Rosario Lazzati Niada” scholarship holders may complete an exchange semester at Università Ca’ Foscari as part of their study programme in their third semester of Master studies. In memory of Maria Rosario Lazzati Niada (1954–2022), a driving force in establishing Comitato Arghosha Faraway Schools, a charity in Afghanistan focusing on women’s education, an annual postgraduate scholarship has been established at the Institute to help talented Afghan women with a university degree to improve their knowledge in international relations and development has been established.