RELATIONS WITH UNIVERSITIES AND RESEARCH CENTERS
In 2008, Eni established and consolidated agreements and partnerships with both Italian and overseas research and University centers, broadening and strengthening its international network.
The work done with Research Centers and Universities is primarily intended to promote specialized training paths and to create professional skills for the business. Activities involve providing support for Master's, Postgraduate and Specialization Degree Courses, as well as scholarships at prestigious Italian and overseas Universities. A further important objective is to establish privileged channels for attracting and recruiting talents.
Cooperation between Research Centers and Universities is also aimed at promoting and supporting scientific research, with particular attention to the energy sector technological development and to environmental research (see the chapter Eni and the Future of Energy).
Some other partnerships are instead directed at making available to the scientific community and students the knowledge and skills built up by the Company throughout its long history. Over the past five years, Eni has in fact catalogued and made available from its historical archives, historic and documentary material of unquestionable scientific value. Most of these sources are unpublished and Eni has offered them to Universities as a laboratory for students to test their theories.
HIGHLIGHTS - SUPPORT FOR UNIVERSITY FOR EDUCATION AND RESEARCH
Since 2008, Eni has been supporting three professorships in innovative specializations: International Economics at John Hopkins University, Strategic Management in Energy Industry at Bocconi University and Global Business Strategies and Competitive Dynamics at Luiss. Eni has also contributed to creating the Centre for Corporate Reputation at the Oxford Said Business School and made an investment of 5 million dollars over 5 years to promote the creation of the Enrico Mattei professorship in "Middle Eastern and African Studies" at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), to conduct research on African and Middle Eastern Countries that are strategic for the oil sector. Since 2008, through the Double Degree Project set up in association with the Bocconi University and the Mgimo University of Moscow, Eni has been providing 5 scholarships a year to Italian
students intending to spend a period of study overseas. Finally, Eni's historical archive has established an internship program.
Contemporary history students at University "La Sapienza" of Rome have been able to research the past activities of Eni around the world through the various documents in the archives. Multimedia communication students at University "Tor Vergata" of Rome have worked with the archive staff to catalogue the cinematographic sources, beginning with media investigation and the study of the procedures for long-term storage.
COOPERATION WITH UNIVERSITIES AND RESEARCH CENTRES
FEEM ACTIVITIES
The Eni Enrico Mattei Foundation (FEEM) is an international non-profit-reasearch istitution established to carry out research in the field of sustainable development and global governance. FEEM has a staff of around 120 researchers working at its offices in Milan, Venice, Viggiano (see chapter "FEEM Activities in Basilicata") and Brussels.
The mission of FEEM is to contribute with research to the consistency, credibility and quality of decisions made in public and private life. This purpose is pursued by mobilizing an international and interdisciplinary network of researchers working on cutting edge research projects, by promoting specialized training activities, by disseminating the results of research projects through various channels of communication and by providing support to national and international institutions.
FEEM is currently involved in around 60 international projects partly funded by third parties, particularly by the European Commission. In 2008, FEEM organized 90 events, (seminars, conferences and workshops), involving a wide range of partners, including ministries, public authorities, international organizations, private companies, Research Centers and Universities.
In 2008, FEEM reorganized its research activities into three programs entitled "Sustainable Development", "Institutions and Markets" and "Global Challenges", and established cooperation agreements with prestigious national and international institutions, such as the Giorgio Cini Foundation of Venice, for the creation of the International Centre for Climate Governance, the London-based think tank Chatham House, and the European Economic Association for the granting of the FEEM Award for young economists.
ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE OF FEEM
♦ SUPPORTING CULTURE
In supporting culture, Eni makes the most of the relations built over time with all the relevant actors in its operational areas. Knowledge of the territory at the local level is in fact essential for implementing cultural projects. Local operators are selected on the basis of a well-established network of relations; project content is identified on the basis of consultations and projects identification is based on detailed knowledge of the community and of its interests. Culture supporting actions can be divided into two major categories: projects financially supported and projects identified, implemented and promoted by the Company itself.
Eni financialy supports projects of institutes, organizations and foundations, as well as high cultural events and initiatives in which the Company's presence is justified by the resulting benefits for its image and communication opportunities. The contribution, disbursed on the basis of a structured assessment process, is essentially financial and does not include project content identification. Projects pertaining to the second category are directly identified an implemented by Eni.
Both categories of initiatives represent the attention Eni gives to schooling with two objectives: on the one hand to allow young people to get a detailed knowledge of the energy issues, supporting and incentivizing the study of scientific subjects, and on the other hand to make students more aware and able to interact with the various aspects of culture.
One example is the Schoolnet Project, through which Eni promotes cultural exchange and knowledge among students from the different Countries where it operates.
HIGHLIGHTS - MAIN CULTURAL PROJECTS IN 2008
FINANCIALLY SUPPORTED PROJECTS
Activities that are supported financially by Eni are selected through an assessment process mainly focused on the communities and local areas the project targets. The main purpose of projects implemented in production areas is to strengthen the reputation of the Eni brand by associating it with events that are attractive to the local area and recognized as high quality events.
In Ravenna, which is a historical home for Eni, the Company supports the Ravenna Festival, the city's most important cultural event, widely reported in the international media. The main purpose of projects implemented in areas of commercial interest is to make a fairly unknown brand recognizable and familiar. In this case disseminating the brand and associating it with an idea of excellence and prestige has a fundamental importance. In 2008, for example, the Company's sponsorship of the Mantegna exhibition at the Louvre, allowed the Company's entry into the French gas market associating the brand with a highly authoritative institution.
PROJECTS CONCEIVED BY ENI
The activities that Eni chooses and independently identifies are also focused on geographical areas of interest.
Production areas, areas of commercial interest, "historical" areas where the Company has a long-established presence are ideal places for producing culture. The Caravaggio's "Conversion of Saul" exhibition in Milan was the result of a proposal made by the women who restored the painting.
Eni understood the exceptional nature of the initiative - the painter, the recent restoration, the rare opportunity to view the work, which is in a private collection - and launched a project based on three strengths: a prestigious venue that had never been used for this purpose - the Sala Alessi of Palazzo Marini, allowing free access to the exhibition and the provision of extra information on the painting itself and its painter. The constant presence and availability to the public of experts was particularly valued. The exhibition was extraordinarily successful and attracted 163,000 visitors.
Mantua, a city that hosts Eni production plants at its petrochemical industry, has for many years hosted to the Festival della Letteratura [Literature Festival] a highly prestigious cultural event which attracts an increasing number of visitors. Every year Eni sponsors this festival and in 2008 it decided to participate with an initiative of its own narrating literature from the Company's point of view.
While researching through its historical archive, Eni discovered, among the pages of its corporate journal Il Gatto Selvatico, ten stories written in the 50s by as many notable Italian authors. The stories having never been re-published, were unknown to the wider public. They include stories by Natalia Ginzburg, Leonardo Sciascia, Giuseppe Dessì, Giuseppe Berto and Goffredo Parise. Assembled in a presentation box, together with a previously unpublished interview to Attilio Bertolucci, the journal's director, the stories were the centrepiece of the initiative. Neri Marcorè, an Italian actor, read a selection of the stories, commented by the journalists Corrado Augias and Mario Pirani, to the delight of the public.
THE SCHOOLNET PROJECT
Eni has been working with the Basilicata Region and the Regional Schools Office for many years on the Schoolnet Project for schools in the Val d'Agri,Val Camastra and Val Basento areas.
The project aims to promote knowledge of the local area and to strengthen dialogue between institutions. During the 2007-2008 academic year, the initiative was extended internationally by involving schools in Hammerfest (Norway), Darwin and Wadeye (Australia) and North Slope (Alaska), areas where Eni currently operates and which are united by a rich cultural context and the presence of energy resources to be exploited. As part of the initiative, around 800 students were invited to write projects describing their local area (which can be viewed at www.schoolnet.eni.it). On June 6, 2008, in Viggiano (Basilicata, Italy), in Hammerfest (Norway), in Darwin and in Wadeye (Australia), panels of people from Eni and from internationally renowned experts presented prizes for the projects produced in each Country and awarded the 1st International Prize to an Australian school for their "Wadeye" project.
The class won a one-week trip to Italy. During the trip it met the boys and girls from the Val d'Agri schools and the regional authorities. The total cost of the project in 2008 was 274,500 Euros.
"UNA CASA PER TUTTI" - "LA VITA NUDA" PROJECT
In 2008, Eni took part in the project entitled Una Casa per Tutti - La Vita Nuda [A Home for Everyone - Life Laid Bare] devised by the Milan Triennale.
The basic principle of the project is that modern cities are - or can become - testing grounds for integration between different cultures. The experience gathered by Eni, a Company that over the years has developed its own way of experiencing the world by sharing work, rules and daily life in seventy different countries, can suggest models for the future of multicultural societies. Through the images taken by colleagues from every corner of the world, Eni talked about the diversity that exists in the contexts in which it operates and where its personnel have lived since the 1950s.
The exhibition entitled La Vita Nuda was visited by 11,000 people between May and September 2008. A book "Abitare il mondo" was subsequently published.The book brings together not only all the material gathered for the exhibition but also stories and witness accounts from colleagues who took part in the project.
Finally, Eni promoted a dialogue with institutions, the world of culture and non-profit organizations by organizing the Abitare il Mondo conference at the Milan Triennale on September 12, 2008. Some of the statements made at the conference can be found at the beginning of this chapter.
