The ‘multicultural’ communication of European projects

Introduction. 1.1 Research context and question The idea of the present thesis work comes from my experience as an intern at the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT), where I have been collaborating with the Communications and External Relations Department and, more specifically, I have been staying in close contact with the person in charge of the communication in European Projects. Thanks to this experience, I had the opportunity to pay close attention to how relationships are built and conducted in an international and dynamic environment like IIT. What particularly caught my attention was the process of building partnerships and relationships between institutional scientific realities that, as the scientific community teaches us, should work on a common ground especially when it comes to creating new knowledge. What I found myself noticing were some differences in how research is intended, its goals, objectives and practices and also how a collaboration relationship is conducted. As Henry Etzkovitz senior researcher at the H-STAR Institute, Stanford University says, “the power and prestige of science is typically thought to be grounded in the ability of scientists to draw strong distinctions between scientific and nonscientific interests” , and 1 this is just one of the ways in which the institutional culture can shape the way research is seen and pursued. My intention is to examine the “multiculturalism” theme intended as the variety of institutional cultures that intersect in a European project consortium, and seen as a problem in the standardisation of research modalities within scientific, ethical and integrity parameters that often vary depending on the national institutional cultures. Therefore this work will analyse how the identity of an institution, its integrity and ethical conduit are built and constructed in order to better understand their role in the establishment of research.