Cultural Cooperation Activities between Italian and Chinese Universities: A Case Study

Italy, a country with a great cultural tradition and a founding member of the European Union (EU), since 2004 very actively contributes to the cultural cooperation activities of EU with non European countries. This paper is a detailed review of the status of those activities, which can be subdivided into joint "Master Mundus" Actions and bilateral teaching and research cooperation agreements established between Italian and Chinese higher education institutions. The University of Padova (UP) has been adopted as a relevant a case study, with teaching and research cooperations spanning from the "S&T" to "Medicine," "Law" and "Humanities." The results obtained so far are promising.