Dear UASR Members,

In this unprecedented situation I strongly believe in the need for universities to strengthen their contacts and to share the best practice to keep safe our students, as well as to guarantee them the continuation of their study courses in the best possible way. Thus, I really appreciate UASR initiative stimulating all the members in this direction.

The University of Pavia is located in Lombardy, the Italian region most affected by the COVID-19. As Rector, since the very beginning of the emergency, I strictly applied all the National and Regional recommendation.

The University remained and is open for essential requirement, but all teaching activity, non-mandatory services and researches stopped to ensure students and personnel safety.

Online teaching, exams and degree sessions have been quickly activated, as well as smart-working for most of the employees.

I realize that constant updates are essential for the Academic community to feel connected, both for colleagues and for students, thus we activated a special webpage on our University website, that was daily updated with national and local information as well as personal messages by me on Academic activity changes.

Student mobility has been particularly affected by the emergency and in order to prompted answer to the students troubles we activated a specific Google survey to localize and support them, we leaved open a 24h phone line and provided them with all the available information for their stay on foreign countries or for their return to Italy. A National network has also been activated to connect all the Italian University International Offices allowing a coordinated action among them and with the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Research is focused on supporting local Hospital for the emergency has been promoted as well as more broaden projects to fight COVID-19 spreading.

COVID-19 emergency is hitting the whole world and it is extremely important for the Academia to stay connected. We need to strengthen our relations to avoid that the present situation will impair future exchange and collaboration.

I strongly believe the need to encourage and reinforce the relation among all the members of the University Alliance of the Silk Road both to face the present emergency and to go ahead profitably when the emergency will be just a bad memory.

My warmest regards,

Francesco Svelto

Rector of the University of Pavia