Vittorio Emanuele Parsi, Director of the Master in Economics and International Policies (MEPIN)

There are decades when history seems to slow – periods of apparent stability, when institutions endure, and change feels gradual. Then there are decades, like the ones we have lived in since ASERI’s foundation: turbulent, disordered and full of reversals.

Founded in the uncertain aftermath of the Cold War, ASERI emerged not in an age of equilibrium but at the onset of a long season of instability. The promise of a peaceful, liberal, global order has been repeatedly shaken – by crises, war and the slow corrosion of democratic institutions. In place of stable interdependence, we experience asymmetric vulnerabilities; in place of cooperative governance, the return of raw geopolitical confrontation.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the current escalation engulfing the Middle East: the widening conflict between Israel and Palestine, the involvement of Iran, and the deepening entanglement of the United States. This latest crisis is not an aberration, but the symptom of a world where power, once again, seeks to free itself from rules; where civilian lives are reduced to bargaining chips in zero-sum calculations; and where international institutions struggle to respond.

In such a world, ASERI’s mission remains both clear and essential: to train students not only to understand these dynamics but to engage with them responsibly. From the very beginning, the School has worked to integrate the analysis of politics, economics, and law – not as separate disciplines but as interwoven dimensions of international life. This method – grounded in intellectual rigor and ethical awareness – is what allows ASERI to resist the pull of ideological shortcuts and cynical resignation.

Throughout its thirty years, ASERI has never taught that the world can be easily fixed but it has consistently taught that it can be understood, and that such understanding is the necessary precondition for any meaningful action.

Today, as war returns to the international stage and autocracies gain ground, we are called once again to the courage of liberal conviction. A world governed by the rule of law is not a utopia: it is a goal that must be defended, sometimes imperfectly, but always consciously. If democracy is to survive externally, it must remain vital internally. And that requires not only institutions, but education. Not only consensus, but culture.

ASERI’s legacy is precisely this: a refusal to separate competence from conscience; analysis from responsibility. Thirty years later, it remains what it set out to be: a place where the global is examined not as fate, but as a field of action: a School where taking the world seriously is still the first step toward changing it.

Happy Birthday, ASERI!