Activities and projects

Doctoral and postgraduate training

Without interfering with the aims and programmes of individual doctorates, the CUE offers them scientific and learning services of common interest by means of inter-doctoral seminars.

The Centre organises highly qualified learning activities for postgraduate, specialisation, PhD, post-doctoral and professional master’s programmes, and for training and lifelong learning seminars and internships, as well as both national and international conferences and seminars.

On its premises, the CUE hosts seminars, conferences and symposia organised independently by PhD programmes, thus providing an area of interaction and mutual information for doctoral students in various subject areas.

In 2001, Eco inaugurated the Master’s degree in "Print and Multimedia Publishing". It was the first Master's degree in publishing offered by a public university in Italy. It emerged from discussions with leading publishers in the Italian and international publishing sectors. Professionals invited to teach included: Gian Arturo Ferrari, Romano Montroni, Rosaria Carpinelli, Giovanna Calvenzi, Valentina Fortichiari, Giulio Lattanzi, Giovanni Lussu. The programme continues to this day.

Research

The CUE encourages the study of Umberto Eco’s work and research themes and promotes research aimed at fostering collaboration between researchers from the subject areas of philosophy, history, cultural heritage, semiotics, linguistics and literature, with the aim of fostering synergies between different competencies that contribute to the conception, design and development of humanistic studies.

To this end, the Centre encourages the exchange of information and scientific initiatives to promote effective interdisciplinary collaboration in the aforementioned cultural field, and establishes collaborations with other university and research institutions in the above subject areas.

Within this framework, the Centre funds research fellowships and scholarships for the in-depth study of topics related to Umberto Eco's work and the areas of interest he addressed, but also to create interdisciplinary research groups around original humanistic topics, or topics that have not yet been explored in depth from a scientific point of view.

Every year, it also awards two visiting fellowships, one senior and one junior, for foreign researchers who may be hosted at the Centre to carry out specific research projects.

Documentation and archive

Among its main purposes, the CUE aims to collect, catalogue and make available to the scientific community (and wider audiences) collections of materials related to Umberto Eco's writings, which are important for the overall documentation of his lifework.

• The Centre is currently exploring collaboration agreements with other archives, aimed at surveying Eco's vast production, not only in the academic field, but also in relation to his various activities, including publishing.
• The Umberto Eco Archive project is under development and includes several sub-projects, currently the Archive of Archives, the Index Humbertinus and the Umberto Eco’s annotated books.
• The CUE records and makes available, through its video archive, some of the events organised by the Centre.
• On 2 February 2021, it was announced to the press that the University Library of Bologna would host the modern book collection and archive that once belonged to Prof. Umberto Eco. On that occasion, the Unibo Umberto Eco Library project was also presented.