Pavia is set for a major public push around scienza when the first Innovation Week opens on Wednesday, April 8, 2026, and runs through Saturday, April 11, 2026. City officials, institutions, and organizers say the four-day program is designed to turn the city into a meeting point for research, culture, technology, and society. The opening and closing moments will frame a schedule that mixes high-level talks, public discussion, and activities aimed at students, families, and businesses.
What the first edition brings to Pavia
The first edition of the Pavia Innovation Week is being promoted by the Chamber of Commerce of Cremona-Mantua-Pavia, Assolombarda, the Municipality of Pavia, the University of Pavia, and Principia SpA, with collaboration from Corriere della Sera. The initiative features more than 80 international guests and more than 40 appointments, with events spread across emblematic city venues including Teatro Fraschini, Collegio Ghislieri, Almo Collegio Borromeo, the University’s Aula Magna, and Piazza della Vittoria.
Organizers describe the project as a permanent platform for dialogue and sharing knowledge. The program is organized into eight thematic strands that range from major international interviews to scientific outreach, theater, and interactive workshops for children. In that structure, scienza is presented not as a single topic but as one of the central threads connecting the broader civic conversation.
Scienza, technology, and public debate
The festival opens with a Signature Talk at Teatro Fraschini titled “Science and Music, the dialogue between two universal languages. ” Geoffrey Hinton, Nobel Prize in Physics for Artificial Intelligence 2024, will take part alongside Giorgio Metta, scientific director of IIT, and scientist and former CERN director Fabiola Gianotti. The session will be moderated by Massimo Sideri, with performances by violinist Alessandro Quarta and pianist Ramin Bahrami.
Other scheduled sessions focus on artificial intelligence, language, democracy, and creativity. Bill De Blasio, former mayor of New York, will discuss the risks to democracy with writer and reporter Silvia Lazzaris. Jeffrey Schnapp and Giuseppe Antonelli will take part in “The Algorithm of Language, ” while Eliana Liotta and Michela Matteoli will appear in “The Radiant Mind. ” The week will also include “The Invention of Language from Gadda to TikTok, ” with Paola Italia, Laura Di Nicola, and Giuseppe Riva.
In the middle of the program, scienza remains central through debates on ethics, policy, and access. A “trial of artificial intelligence” will bring together Umberto Ambrosoli, Oreste Pollicino, and Roberta Cocco, moderated by Adele Sarno. The impact of AI on journalism will be examined by Luciano Fontana with Giuseppe De Bellis, Agnese Pini, and Danda Santini, while a separate discussion will look at cinema with Paolo Baldini and director Maurizio Nichetti.
What officials are saying
Mayor Michele Lissia said the project “has been going on for more than a year and a half” and recalled that a protocol of understanding was signed in October 2024 with the other partners to create a festival that would “enhance the vocation of a city like Pavia, projected toward innovation. ”
Lissia also said the goal is to make it stable over time, adding that the aspiration of the public-private partnership is “to make a festival permanent” that matches the city’s clear vocation. He pointed to Pavia’s long academic tradition, its scientific research and care institutions, CNAO, the Chips. it foundation, and local companies working in innovation.
Massimo Sideri, the festival’s scientific and editorial director, said the format is meant to be a permanent platform for sharing knowledge and opening complex themes to the public. The closing session will feature Telmo Pievani and Carlo Ratti, marking the end of a program that places scienza at the center of both research and civic identity.
Why this matters now
The city is also preparing an additional business-focused appendix at the end of the week, underlining the link between scientific debate and economic development. The schedule is being presented as a broad civic event, with a strong emphasis on students and on visitors from outside Pavia as well as local audiences.
For Pavia, the immediate test will be turnout and continuity: whether the first edition can build enough momentum to become a fixture in the city’s calendar. If the opening week delivers the participation organizers expect, scienza could become the defining word of a much longer story for the city.
