FIT – Trieste International Foundation for the Progress and Freedom of Science

FIT supports scientific and technological initiatives, promotes relations between universities and research centres, and enhances local and international connections.
Motto: Freedom for science, Science for freedom.
The Trieste International Foundation for the Advancement and Freedom of Science (FIT) has the following objectives:

• to promote and encourage progress, freedom and the dissemination of science and its
  peaceful applications, recommending, promoting and supporting national and international scientific and technological initiatives, including through the
  establishment of new bodies;
• to promote and increase the scientific and technological application activities of local
  universities and research institutions or related operational units, including by fostering their relations and collaboration with all similar institutions in Italy and around the world, particularly in emerging countries;
• to promote and increase Trieste's cultural and economic relations at an international level, enhancing links with the research centres located there.

Since 2021, FIT has been the administrative secretariat of IUPAP, the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics: an international non-governmental organisation representing the global physics community. IUPAP was founded in 1922 and has its registered office in Geneva. Its purpose is to promote pure and applied physics, facilitate cooperation among physicists worldwide, and promote the use of physics for the benefit of humanity.

The administrative headquarters are in Trieste at FIT, which provides IUPAP with logistical and administrative support. The two organisations work closely together to promote scientific research and the dissemination of physics in Trieste and around the world. The IUPAP headquarters in Trieste are located in the Porto Vecchio Electrical Substation.

www.iupap.org

Since 2022, FIT has also been collaborating with the National Institute of Oceanography
and Experimental Geophysics (OGS) on a special research project related to the
Laboratory for Quantitative Sustainability (TLQS). The laboratory draws on the
collaboration of young research fellows from the OGS and professors from the
Universities of Trieste and Udine, the ICTP, SISSA, and the OGS itself. The research
activity proposed for the first four years concerns scientific modelling applied to the
following topics:

1. study of the blue planet for the sustainability of the marine economy
2. food and biodiversity for the health of the planet and its inhabitants
3. climate change and the environment
4. new data science at the service of sustainability and human ecology
5. energy transition and industrial processes
6. sustainability and social sciences, the right to sustainability, attention to diversity and
   inclusion, the relationship between sustainability and social equity
7. space tools for monitoring the Earth’s habitat
   www.quantitativesustainability.org

The FIT, in collaboration with the Scuola Normale Superiore (SNS) and the Istituto Superiore per le Industrie Artistiche (ISIA), as part of the TLQS, intends to organise the “Interdisciplinary Weeks at the Palazzone di Cortona” starting in 2026: summer schools to be held at the Palazzone della Scuola Normale Superiore in Cortona (Arezzo) on an annual (or biennial) basis, on topics related to sustainable development in the spirit of interdisciplinarity. The first summer school, to be held in June 2026, will focus on new indicators for sustainable GDP.