International opportunities: concluded the second edition of the EELISA Scientific Student Competition, in Budapest. The participating students and all the awards for Scuola Sant'Anna

The second edition of the EELISA Scientific Student Competition, organized under the EELISA alliance by the working group led by Scuola Sant'Anna and hosted by Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME), has concluded. This year's challenge featured over 140 students and more than 100 presentations, including online and in-person sessions.

The initiative provides participants with opportunities for competition-based learning through research, growth and collaboration activities to learn about and share scientific achievements. Thanks to EELISA and the organization of the challenges, students can engage in different areas of research, strengthening their interdisciplinary approach, and begin to critically approach presentations of their work, honing their ability to communicate complex projects.

Scuola Sant'Anna counts several successes in the competition, in which a large number of ordinary and doctoral students participated. The final rankings saw:

- Gao Nuofan, honour student in Molecular Biotechnology, received first prize in the "Social Sciences 1" session through his presentation of his paper "Exploring the Success Factors of MetaApp: A Case Study of China's Metaverse Industry".
- Leonardo Ricci, honour student in Political Science, placed second in the "Social Sciences 1" session, participating remotely and presenting the paper "European Industrial Strategic Autonomy under the CHIPS Act." The paper analyzes European industrial policy measures in the semiconductor market as tools to achieve strategic autonomy from foreign competitors.
- Alessandro Valfrè, honour student in Economics and Management, won third place in the "Social Sciences 2" session, presenting research with results and solutions to reduce the gender gap in transportation.
- Matteo Dalle Luche, honour student in Economics and Management, received an honorable mention in the "Social Sciences 2" session, which focused on addressing income and wealth inequality.

- Ahmet Kaymak, Ph.D. student in Biorobotics, took first place in the "Medicine" session with his presentation "Neural bursts and firing regularity as convergent neural dynamics in globus pallidus for genetic dystonia syndromes," a research paper examining neural models to identify the shared dynamics underlying genetic dystonia, a movement disorder resulting from genetic mutations.

Cover: Gao Nuofan and Alessandro Valfrè in Budapest.