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
Peggy Rae Sapienza the University of Maryland, her alma mater, for a student majoring in economics "to help facilitate the education of a hardworking student and encourage him or her toward graduation" (Sapienza had graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in economics). On June 5, 2015, Chicon 7 created the Peggy Rae Sapienza Endowment to benefit the special collections library at Northern Illinois University, using the last of Chicon 7’s surplus funds. Chicon 7 Chair Dave McCarty announced the initial endowment of $25,000 during the Nebula Awards Weekend reception at The Palmer House Hilton in Chicago. The endowment is intended to advance