Deal positions research cooperation as important part of broader collaboration plansItaly and Germany have signed a joint declaration on universities, research and innovation, and committed to draw up a shared action plan for broader cooperation by September. Italy’s minister for universities and research, Anna Maria Bernini, and Germany’s federal minister for research, technology and space, Dorothee Bär, signed the declaration on 23 January during a bilateral intergovernmental summit co-chaired in Rome by Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni and Germany’s chancellor Friedrich Merz.