One of the nice traditions of the Joint Technology Center of the European Commission is that they maintain "semesters" according to the schedule of the European Council presidencies. So the Slovenian semester started a few days ago.

I was asked to take part at the kick-off of the Slovenian semester at Ispra, Italy and gladly accepted the invitation. Last but not least, my Faculty for Civil Engineering has an on-going and fruitful cooperation with the JRC's ELSA lab and was even able to meet some of my former students there.

Of course there were a few speeches. Mine included. Below are the slides I made to use as talking points. Key message: Europe is about synergies among its parts. JRC's are a good example of that.