Michelangelo Baracchi Bonvicini

Michelangelo Baracchi Bonvicini is President of Atomium Culture, the Permanent Platform for European Excellence, presented publicly at the European Parliament on the 27th of November 2009.

Together with the Honorary President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing he is member of the Presidency. With the former French Minister for European Affairs and current Minister Bruno Le Maire and the former Swedish Minister for Culture Cecilia Stegö Chilò he is member of the Executive Board of Atomium Culture.

Historian by training, he is the founder of the Permanent Platform of Atomium Culture. After his activities as foreign correspondent initiated at a young age, he dedicated his time to academic research with special attention given to the issue of European integration. He then started the development of the project for, and then to directing, the start-up that brought to the creation of Atomium Culture, the first Permanent Platform for European Excellence that brings together some of the most authoritative universities, newspapers and businesses in Europe in an organised structure for the selection, exchange and dissemination of the most innovative European research, to increase the movement of knowledge across borders, across sectors and to the public at large.

Early life

Michelangelo Baracchi Bonvicini was born in London and grew up in Italy. He is an English and Italian citizen. At the age of fifteen he left school and continued his classical studies privately. He graduated in History at the University of Bologna.

He comes from a family of Jewish origins that, after having moved to Italy from Constantinople following the fall of the city during the fourth Crusade, settling first in Ravenna, converted to the Christian faith, changing its name from Barak to Baracchi. Settled in Modena at the end of the sixteenth century, his family gave birth to the literary man and statesman Flaminio Antonio Baracchi, Count of Paullo and Secretary of State of the Dukedom of Modena in 1645. Following the annexation of the Dukedom of Modena with the Kingdom of Sardinia in 1860, the branch of the family from which he descends moved to Bologna, where it still resides.

Journalism

At the age of eighteen he left for Kosovo where he reported the war in Kosovo (1999) for the Italian editorial group “Quotidiano Nazionale”, beginning his activity of journalist within the field of foreign correspondence which brought him to stay first in Kosovo, Albania and Montenegro, then in Israel and Palestine during the second Intifada (2002) and in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, following the US invasion of Afghanistan (2003).

In 2003 he published the book “Sognando Gerusalemme"[1], resulting from his stay in Israel and Palestine in 2002. At the end of 2003 Michelangelo Baracchi Bonvicini concluded his activity as journalist and dedicated himself to historical research, with special attention given to the European issues.

Research

Scholar of European integration, his latest research on the subject regard the Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe, in which the account of the private meetings with the then President of the European Convention Valéry Giscard d’Estaing and with the Italian Vice President Giuliano Amato are included (2003-2004).

He then proceeded with comparative studies between the Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe and the Constitution of the United States of America (2004). Followed by a study on the reconstruction policy of Republican Italy, with a focus on the European Policy thinking of Alcide De Gasperi, where his interviews with the Italian Senator Giulio Andreotti are included (2005).

Following his research into European integration, Michelangelo Baracchi Bonvicini analyzed the problem related to the lack of European integration and the shifting paradigms of society creating the necessity for a transition to a knowledge society.

Atomium Culture

From April 2004 to December 2005 Michelangelo Baracchi Bonvicini looked after the study of a broad initiative contemplating an independent structure, supranational and non-profit aimed at creating a joint platform within the fields of research, exchange and dissemination that engage the main actors of a knowledge society. In January 2006 Atomium Culture was formally founded.

Start-up

From 2006 onwards, he promoted and coordinated a complex start-up around Europe for the duration of three years that, in agreement with the institutions engaged, was kept confidential until the public launch. Starting from a small group of close collaborators and some initial universities, the start-up did foresee the engagement and organisation of some of the most authoritative universities, newspapers and businesses in Europe and created the first Permanent Platform for European Excellence that brings together over forty different institutions of excellence in Europe among universities, newspapers and businesses. The creation of the committees and the bodies necessary for the proper functioning of the Permanent Platform were developed in parallel.

The Public Launch

The 27 November 2009 Michelangelo Baracchi Bonvicini and Valéry Giscard d’Estaing publicly presented the Permanent Platform for European Excellence of Atomium Culture at the European Parliament in Brussels, during the first annual conference that brought together the leaders and main representatives of the actors engaged in the Permanent Platform and leading thinkers from Europe. The opening session was held in the same room that for two years hosted the sessions of the European Convention. Chair of the Conference was Geoff Mulgan, Strategic Adviser of Atomium Culture and former Director of Policy and Director of the Prime Minister Strategy Unit of the British Prime Minister Tony Blair. In that occasion, the President of the European Parliament Mr Jerzy Buzek sent a message of support wishing a close future collaboration between the European Parliament at the Permanent Platform of Atomium Culture.

The European Manifesto of Atomium Culture

On the 9th of November 2009, exactly twenty years after the fall of the Berlin wall, Michelangelo Baracchi Bonvicini and Valéry Giscard d’Estaing signed the European Manifesto of Atomium Culture, a document that outlines the vision for Europe based on its best research and its most innovative ideas as catalyzing and aggregating elements of the useful diversity of Europe. It fosters the concept of effective intersectorial cooperation between the different and main sectors of society, considered as key pillars for the creation of a knowledge society: universities, newspapers, businesses. On 27 November 2009, day of the public launch of Atomium Culture, the Manifesto was simultaneously made public by many of the European newspapers engaged in the Permanent Platform, among which Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, El País, Il Sole 24 Ore.

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