On the first Wednesday of every month, there is a ‘pranzo per i direttori’ at a restaurant somewhere in the centre of Rome. This is an opportunity for the directors of the all the many foreign academies and research and cultural institutes in Rome to get together and swap experiences and advice, a vital ‘check-in’ with a group with a similar mission and outlook. At recent lunches, ‘direttrici’ have outnumbered ‘direttori’ by some considerable amount. In many ways our lunches represent in microcosm a wider societal shift towards modes of leadership that are differently gendered and conceived: I hugely welcome the range of new perspectives and experiences that our four new women Trustees bring to the BSR Council, and I am looking forward to working with them.
Abigail Brundin, BSR Director
Photo credits: Mimosa tree by Luana Rigolli; Charlotte Higgins by David Levene.