The CSR teaching offering consists in: seminars, courses, and schools. Although they are different activities, they are based on the same approach, which I called “CSR method”.
“CSR method”
The CSR teaching program is interdisciplinary, as it is addressed to young researchers drawn from the natural, social and human sciences. Interdisciplinarity is at the basis of CSR education, which is centred on building a space of relationship among, across and beyond cultures and disciplines mediated by dialogue. This approach implies theoretical and practical lectures, pays attention to participants’ culture and geographical provenance, and, above all in CSR schools, this approach allows young researchers to combine life and study together.
These aspects permit the understanding and application of the content. For this reason, some participants called this approach to learning a “method”, as the original meaning of “the way of doing things”. Since then, I have been using the same term for defining CSR training.
Seminars
I have been proposing CSR seminars since 2003, with the aim to introduce the main topics of communication of scientific research, and to present the CSR teaching program. They generally consist in a few hours of lecture, which briefly outlines the origin, the approach and the program of the CSR offering, and it is usually reserved for the young researchers of the university which invites me.
The seminars are generally proposed in Italian, for the Italian participants, and in English, when I teach abroad or for the non-Italian young researchers.
Courses
I have been teaching CSR courses since 2007, and they consist of a twenty-hour design, which I teach in four days of five-hours lessons.
The program combines a theoretical and practical approach based on the analysis in class of written and oral works prepared by the participants. Theoretical lectures present a few notes on semiotics, necessary to introduce the young researchers to the construction of written and oral text and the communication strategy.
The courses are generally proposed in Italian, for the Italian participants, and in English, when I teach abroad or for the non-Italian young researchers.
They are generally reserved for the PhD students of the university and research centre which invite me. Among them:
Schools
The CSR schools are organized entirely by me, and are held in an Italian location usually far from town. This offering, in fact, is an intense experience: three to five days, during which the participants live and study together. Although I propose the same content of the course, with six to eight hours per day, this design allows participants to share the whole day and to especially focus on communication of scientific research, for almost one week. For this reason, from the beginning, in 2009, I have called this offering a “school” instead of a “course”.
Furthermore, unlike the courses, the schools are open to young scientists drawn from different universities and towns. This implies either a disciplinary or a cultural diversity which is peculiar to this proposal.
As the courses and the seminars, the schools are generally proposed in Italian. They are taught also in English at the invitation of non-Italian universities or for non-Italian young researchers.The summer CSR school has been hosted at the Centro Studi Alpino of the University of Tuscia (Pieve Tesino, Trento) for ten years; then, in central Italy (Viterbo).
The CSR schools proposed in other periods of the year have been held in Piedmont (Ivrea, and Turin), Sicily (Palermo), and Viterbo.