Venue

SOMET 2027 — Where Ideas Bloom by the Mediterranean

Imagine discussing the future of technology in a place where science, history and nature have been inspiring one another for more than a century.

In 2027, SOMET will leave the conventional conference hall behind and move to an extraordinary setting: Villa Hanbury and the Hanbury Botanical Gardens in La Mortola, Ventimiglia, on the spectacular western edge of the Italian Riviera.

Overlooking the deep blue waters of the Mediterranean, Villa Hanbury rises within one of Europe’s most remarkable botanical landscapes: almost nineteen hectares of terraces, historic paths and extraordinary plant collections descending towards the sea. Founded in the nineteenth century and today managed by the University of Genoa, the Gardens are not simply a place of exceptional beauty. They are a living environment for research, education, biodiversity conservation and scientific discovery.

And this is precisely what makes Villa Hanbury the perfect home for SOMET 2027.

Here, scientific sessions will unfold not in an anonymous convention centre, but inside a historic Mediterranean villa, within its scientific and educational spaces, and surrounded by a living botanical laboratory. Between sessions, participants will step outside into gardens where plants from different continents have met, adapted and flourished together for generations.

It is difficult to imagine a more fitting metaphor for a scientific conference.

Different origins. Different disciplines. Different ideas.
One environment in which unexpected connections can grow.

At Villa Hanbury, the boundary between conference and experience begins to disappear. A discussion may continue while walking beneath palms and centuries-old trees. A new collaboration may begin on a terrace overlooking the Mediterranean. An idea started during a technical session may evolve along a path through the gardens, in the laboratories, or in conversation against the extraordinary landscape of the Ligurian coast.

SOMET 2027 will therefore be more than a meeting.

It will be a scientific retreat, an opportunity to slow down enough to think deeply, while bringing together researchers, professionals and innovators from around the world in a place devoted simultaneously to knowledge, diversity and discovery.

Hosted by the University of Genoa and the Regional Laboratory Governance 4.0, SOMET 2027 invites its community to experience science differently: immersed in nature, surrounded by history, overlooking the Mediterranean, and only a few kilometres from the border between Italy and France.

Because some conferences are remembered for their programme.

Others are remembered for where an idea began.

Come for the science. Leave inspired.