(AGI) Rome, Oct 13 - The Italian foreign ministry convened ameeting on Tuesday of all the scientific attaches at embassies,consulates and permanent diplomatic delegations worldwide. Theaim of the meeting was to take stock of the situation andpresent the latest developments in an effort tointernationalise the Italian scientific system. The meeting wasopened by Foreign Minister, Paolo Gentiloni, and the Ministerfor Education, Universities and Research, Stefania Giannini,who were followed by the presidents of major researchinstitutions, scientific associations and of associations ofItalian researchers working overseas. Attending themeeting were 25 scientific attaches from 18 embassies, threeconsulates and two permanent diplomatic delegations atinternational organisations. Participants also included twotechnical attaches for space-related issues at the Italianembassy in Washington D.C. and an expert in charge of followingthe European Union's science and innovation policies. "We areimplementing several projects, the most important of which willmake it possible to overcome the problem of the free movementof professionals, the so-called 'double qualification'. Inpractice, an Italian engineer is not recognised as such inBrasilia and vice versa. This barrier must be removed," RobertoBruno, the scientific attache at the Italian Embassy inBrasilia since last July, told participants. He went on: "I hadpreviously developed the project that we are now implementingon a pilot basis. It will imply obtaining a doublequalification. It will apparently require a very simpleprocedure and it will be based on scholarships. In Italy, itwill be sufficient to make use of the few grants thatuniversities dispose of because things are very different inBrazil, where local universities dispose of hundreds of grants.We intend to start with four or five universities and theproject will involve all departments, not only the sciencedepartments. For Brazilians, this is a particularly appealingproject. Another project that we are developing is cooperationin the space sector." . .