CIMEA (Information Centre on Academic Mobility and Equivalence)

Who are we?

CIMEA – Since 1984, the Information Centre on Academic Mobility and Equivalence has been providing information and advising interested parties on the procedures of qualifications recognition on themes linked to Italian and international higher education and training.

The principal objective of CIMEA is to further academic mobility in all aspects, facilitating the understanding of the elements of the Italian system and of foreign superior education and training systems and sponsor the principles of the Lisbon Recognition Convention on qualifications recognition.

CIMEA owns an international document centre and specialised databases on foreign higher education systems, on the types of qualifications of every country and on the national legislation in terms of higher education. It supplies on average, via email, and free of charge, replies to around 10,000 enquiries on the theme of qualification recognition and evaluation every year, to Italian and foreign universities, university students, lecturers and researchers, international organizations, ministries, research institutes and Italian and foreign public bodies, institutions, companies and associations, Italian and European citizens, and citizens from all continents.

Why we are participating in the project

CIMEA, as Italian ENIC-NARIC centre, has also been involved in the Bologna Peer Support Group Structure as co-chair of the Bologna Peer Support Group on recognition since September 2018. Therefore they are a perfect partner in this project that seeks to build further on the work in the peer groups. CIMEA is also very well experienced in European projects. With CIMEA as partner, it will bring the point of view of the ENIC-NARIC networks into the project. As the first two partners will mainly look from a policy point of view, CIMEA will be able to tackle also the implementation side.

Our role in the project

CIMEA is a partner in the project MICROBOL. Its main responsibilities include:

  • Participating in the International Steering Committee
  • Leading the Working Group on Qualifications Recognition, in collaboration with the experts
  • Reporting on the activities of the Working Group
  • Contributing to the framework on microcredentials

Our Team

Chiara Finocchietti

Chiara Finocchietti

Deputy Director

Chiara Finocchietti is the Deputy director of CIMEA where she started in working in 2010. She has been elected in the NARIC Advisory Board for two mandates in the last years and has been nominated by the Council of Europe as expert in the ETINED Platform, a network of specialists that shares good practices in the field of transparency and integrity in education. She is the co-chair of the Thematic Peer Group B on the Lisbon Recognition Convention (TPG B on LRC) together with France and Albania.
She is author and co-author of several publications in the field of higher education on the topics of fraud in education and systems of education.

Silvia Bianco

Silvia Bianco

Head of the International Projects Unit

Silvia Bianco has been working in CIMEA since September 2015 and started as credential evaluator for the qualifications coming from Arab and African countries. For this reason, she had and has an active role in the development of procedures for the recognition of qualifications held by refugees in case of partial or missing documentation

She is now the responsible person of the office for the development and management of international and European projects in the field of higher education.