Graduation ceremony held at the Giardini Estensi in Varese for graduates of the University of Insubria

On 14 July, to mark the twenty-eighth anniversary of the University’s foundation, the University of Insubria’s Graduates’ Celebration is scheduled to take place. This special occasion will begin with an academic procession, led by the Rector, Maria Pierro, and the Deputy Rector, Umberto Piarulli. The event  will take place in front of the fountain in the Giardini Estensi, the seat of Varese City Council.

Marching alongside a delegation of lecturers in academic robes will be around 350 graduates who obtained their degrees between July 2022 and March 2026. They represent the most recent cohort of the 41,500 graduates that Insubria University has conferred degrees upon since 1998, averaging around 2,200 per year in its most recent history. This marks the third edition of the event, following the Graduation Days held in 2018 and 2022.

The procession will wind its way through the city centre along a route that highlights the University’s ties with the local area, passing through Piazza della Repubblica – the historic seat of the Rector’s Office – and Piazza Monte Grappa, where, from September, the Chamber of Commerce building will host the Law degree programme, before concluding at the Estensi Gardens. The ceremony will begin at 6.30 pm near the fountain in the Estensi Gardens, where graduates will be celebrated by their families, friends, the Rector’s delegates, members of the University Senate and Governing Council, department heads, the University’s Director-General Antonio Romeo and invited dignitaries. The event will be hosted by journalist Matteo Inzaghi, director of Rete 55.

The ceremony will open with a welcome address by the Rector, Maria Pierro, followed by a speech from an outstanding graduate: Francesco Bucceri, born in 1977, who was awarded a degree in Economics and Business with distinction in 2003, with a thesis entitled ‘The marketing of airport logistics companies: the MLE case study’, supervised by Professor Antonio Majocchi. Bucceri is currently Deputy Head of the ‘Revenue Policy and Management’ Unit within the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Budget, a post he took up in 2019 after serving for 21 years in the Guardia di Finanza. He has served as a customs adviser to Italian military commanders in Kosovo and the United Arab Emirates, as a trainer for the Afghan Border Police in Herat, and as a lecturer on international cooperation for Lebanese and Nigerian police officers.

Certificates of attendance will then be presented by the heads of the departments to which the degree programmes are affiliated. Those present will include Paola Biavaschi for Humanities and Innovation for the Territory, Giulio Carcano for Medicine and Technological Innovation, Alberto Coen Porisini for Theoretical and Applied Sciences, Giuseppe Colangelo for Law, Economics and Cultures, Luigina Guasti for Medicine and Surgery, Flavia Marinelli for Biotechnology and Life Sciences, Michela Prest for Science and High Technology, Andrea Uselli for Economics, and the Dean of the School of Medicine, Francesca Rovera.

The ceremony will conclude with the tossing of the cap: a symbolic gesture, originating from the Anglo-Saxon academic tradition, which marks the award of the degree as a transition to a new phase of life.