The "Dynamics and Information Research Institute" is born, a mixed research unit within which the Unicredit department and the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa undertake to develop research activities in sectors of common interest, with an eye to the potential industrial implications. The five-year agreement was signed on Friday by Federico Ghizzoni, CEO of the institute, and by Fabio Beltram, director of the Normale.
Unicredit will pay the Normale a financial contribution of a minimum of 50 to a maximum of 200 euros for each year of the agreement's duration. Furthermore, upon signing the agreement, UniCredit and the Scuola Normale Superiore undertook to make human and instrumental resources available, as far as they are responsible, as well as the availability of premises and structures functional to the objectives of the joint collaboration.
“The collaboration with the Scuola Normale Superiore – commented Ghizzoni – is part of a set of actions with which the Bank supports innovation as an integral part of its strategic plan, as well as the growth of the country's economic system”.
The agreement was also signed by Paolo Fiorentino, deputy general manager and COO of UniCredit, who underlined how "the bank is investing a lot of resources and energy to renew its range of services and is therefore interested in supporting, enhancing and drawing useful indications from the activity of universities, researchers and professionals in the world of information and communication technology, according to the logic of what today is defined as open innovation”.
For its part, “the primary objective of the Scuola Normale Superiore is to contribute to the cultural and economic development of the country – said Beltram -. Our work as a place of selection and training for talented young people is well known, but we want and can do more. Thanks to this agreement, another opportunity for collaboration and growth has arisen for the School's long tradition of mathematical research”.
The first research fields in which the two institutes will cooperate within the Dynamics and Information Research Institute have already been defined:
– dynamic systems, non-linearities, random and pseudo-random processes, with the aim of identifying the computational limitations inherent in current pseudo-random models and creating an increasingly precise modeling of non-deterministic forecast economic-financial systems;
– network theory, complex systems, agent models, which have important implications, for example, for payment systems, credit models and the prediction of the propagation of system shock dynamics;
– high-frequency time series, information theory and computational ergodic theory, which involve the conceptual challenge of building very high-dimensional models capable of describing and predicting dynamics and interdependencies of increasingly complex systems.
