The Decline and Renaissance of Universities: Moving from the Big Brother University to the Slow University

Renzo Rosso has been a Professor at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Politecnico di Milano, Italy, since 1986. He received the Borland Award for Hydrology in 2005, and the Henry Darcy Medal from the European Geosciences Union in 2010 for his research contributions to water science and engineering. He has been an advisor to national and international scientific agencies, an elected member of the Academic Senate and the head of the Faculty of Environmental Engineering at the Politecnico di Milano, and director of an interuniversity Doctoral Program in Water Engineering and of an International Master’s Program in Water Resources Management. The author of 8 research books, 3 university-level textbooks, 3 essays, one novel and over 400 papers (more than 100 in SCI journals) in the fields of hydrology, water resources, river engineering, climate and glaciology, fluvial geomorphology, reliability analysis, stochastic processes, nonlinear dynamics and fractals. His current activities include science and higher education communication as a columnist for national newspapers and magazines.