University of Pisa become a member of the Universities Research Association. Among its notable graduates there are several national and foreign political leaders including two Italian presidents, five Popes, five Italian prime ministers and three Nobel Laureates as students, faculty or staff affiliates. Pisa has an intense athletic rivalry with the University of Pavia, which traditionally culminates in the Pisa-Pavia Regatta ("Regata Pisa-Pavia"), the oldest competition of this kind in Italy, and second in Europe only to the Oxford Cambridge boat race. In 2013, the University of Pisa finished with La Sapienza University of Rome in first place among the Italian universities, according
Léonce Bekemans Léonce Bekemans Léonce Bekemans (born 20 September 1950 in Bruges) is a Belgian economist and scholar of European studies. Since 2002, he holds the Jean Monnet Chair in "Globalisation, Intercultural Dialogue and Inclusiveness in the EU" at the University of Padua. He is a former Professor at the College of Europe in Bruges, where he was Associate Professor 1991-95 and full Professor 1995-2001. He has previously been a research fellow at the European University Institute. He is also a visiting professor at the La Sapienza University and the Opole University, and has been Jean Monnet Visiting Professor of European Interdisciplinary