TRIESTE, Italy – The sixth academic year of the intra-university second-level University Master’s course is now underway for young graduates in economics, engineering and agrarian science. The course is designed to provide in-depth knowledge about the culture of coffee from plant to cup, including the social values of coffee drinking and the culture of producer nations.
The Master’s in Coffee Economics and Science is unique anywhere in the world. Highly international in its scope, it confirms the city of Trieste’s place as the world capital of coffee culture.
Faculty are drawn from top educational institutions in Italy and internationally: the University of Udine, the University of Trieste, Wageningen University, the University of São Paulo, the University of Northern Colorado, and the University of Ljubljana.
Welcoming this year’s intake, Anna Rossi Illy, Chairwoman of the Fondazione Ernesto Illy, and Roberto Morelli, Chairman of the Master’s Course Board, expressed their satisfaction at the increasing success that the Master’s course in Coffee Economics and Science has achieved over the years.
This year, a record twenty-four students have enrolled on the course, hailing from sixteen different countries: Brazil, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Italy, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Rwanda, Taiwan and the United States of America.
“With 83 students trained during the first five editions of the Master we can be proud to have contributed and to continue in this way to spread the wealth of knowledge related to the entire production of coffee” says Anna Rossi Illy “Working into the coffee market requires a high level preparation. For this reason, the multidisciplinary curriculum offered to students is aimed at training managers of the future and to increase the level of quality into the preparation of the Italian espresso”.
Now in its sixth year, the Master’s is being promoted and run by an elite group of educational partners: the University of Trieste, the University of Udine, the Fondazione Ernesto Illy, illycaffè Spa, SISSA – Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati di Trieste, the Consorzio di biomedicina molecolare (Area Science Park – Trieste), and the Distretto Industriale del Caffè della Provincia di Trieste (Trieste Coffee Cluster).
The 400-hour course is taught at illycaffè headquarters from Monday 18 January to 17 June. The course concludes in mid-October with a dissertation/thesis.
Support and a grants are available to students once again: fourteen scholarships (of which seven are full scholarships, two under the UNIDO project) and seven partial, provided by the Fondazione Ernesto Illy, one by the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Udine e Pordenone (CRUP), and one by the Fondazione CRTrieste.
Facts and figures about the Master’s in Coffee Economics and Science:
– Academic Year 2015/2016: from 18 January to 17 June 2016
– 400 hours of lessons (200 with university lecturers, 200 with illycaffè lecturers)
– No. of University Educational Credits: 60
– Location: illycaffè, Trieste
– Language: English
