Photo: Ambassador Riccardo Guariglia Secretery General Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs IC
Prof. Massimo Maria Caneva Head Health & Diplomacy University Hospital Campus Bio-Medico Rome 2026
Massimo Caneva: HEALTH AND DIPLOMACY
THE NEW PATH TO PEACE
Prof. Massimo Maria Caneva MD PhD
Head Health and Diplomacy
“Health and Diplomacy” was established at the University Polyclinic of the Biomedical Campus with the aim not only of providing high-level specialized care to the international community, the diplomatic corps, and international organizations, but also, and above all, of promoting new strategies for diplomacy and international cooperation to foster a greater understanding of global health emergencies and the role that health plays in promoting peace, integration, and dialogue, particularly in crisis areas.
We are living through particularly dramatic times on the international stage, and it is becoming increasingly clear that we need to nurture and prepare new generations who possess not only analytical skills but also the ability to understand and think creatively in order to find solutions to what are referred to as “crises within crises.” In fact, inter-ethnic conflicts and struggles often occur within geopolitical contexts and alongside the risk of natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, and epidemics: all of this can be defined as “crises within crises” and clearly contributes to the complexity of these crises, which, with globalization now underway, affect not only large areas of our planet but the entire global community.
This has led to collaborative relationships with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Holy See, and international organizations such as the United Nations and the European Union, thanks to the mutual understanding among those who lead this program and the mutual trust in promoting this new strategy, which is built on three fundamental pillars at the international level: diplomacy, which is a fundamental element of foreign policy; universities and university cooperation, which is not merely academic collaboration—that is, the exchange of researchers, students, and professors but also the university’s active role in crisis areas as a partner supporting diplomacy and international organizations; and, finally, international organizations with peacekeeping forces, such as the United Nations and the European Union.
These three entities Diplomacy and Universities, and the United Nations and European Union peacekeeping forces—constitute a unique element in this new strategy. This makes it clear that relations are very close not only with the diplomatic community and current ambassadors and heads of peacekeeping forces, as well as with the academic world, which still has a long way to go, since universities have never addressed the issue of their service to the international community in these terms, except through what I mentioned earlier—academic collaboration—which involves only exchanges of faculty and researchers to promote research and teaching. Thus, it has not engaged in analysis and action in the field but only in analysis and introspection regarding research and teaching.
