Earth Emergency. Stefano Mancuso conference: The reason of plants

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November 19th, 2025
from 17:00

Sala polivalente (ground floor), Campus SUPSI Mendrisio, via Flora Ruchat-Roncati 15 and online

Founder of plant neurobiology and passionate communicator, he is one of the world’s leading authorities on the study of plants, intelligent and sentient creatures capable of choosing, learning and remembering. At the SUPSI Campus in Mendrisio, he invites us to explore the extraordinary intelligence of plants.

Sold out (seats in the Sala polivalente). It is possible to follow the live stream on Zoom via this link (here you can find instructions on how to join events on Zoom, in case you have never used this platform before)

 

Stefano Mancuso is an internationally renowned scientist, best known for his fascinating studies on plant neurobiology, according to which plants have an evolved communication system equipped with senses. A veritable “nation of plants” or “tribe of plants” (as the titles of two of his books suggest) that has existed for much longer than us and has a great deal to teach us.

As part of the Earth Emergency 2025 series of public conferences, promoted by the Department of Environment Constructions and Design SUPSI in partnership with Bobbium, Mancuso reiterates how plants constitute the vital infrastructure of our planet: they produce oxygen, regulate the climate and sustain every food chain. But their “reason” goes beyond their ecological function. Mancuso takes us on a journey to explore plant intelligence, a form of cognition that is widespread, decentralised, silent, but extraordinarily effective. Plants orient themselves, communicate, learn and make decisions – without a brain, but with a sophisticated network of perceptions and responses. Rediscovering their patient, cooperative, adaptive logic can inspire new models of life, economy and human society that are more resilient and less predatory. In an era marked by ecological crisis, the “reason of plants” becomes a radical proposal: to observe the world through plant eyes, to rediscover balance, wisdom and a sense of limits.

Stefano Mancuso’s lecture, entitled La ragione delle piante (The reason of plants), will be held in Italian on Wednesday, 19 November 2025, at 17:00 in the Sala polivalente on the ground floor of the SUPSI Campus in Mendrisio (via Flora Ruchat-Roncati 15), in collaboration with the Associazione L’Uomo e il Clima and the Associazione Trame.

Free admission upon registration subject to availability. 

The lecture will also be broadcast live on Zoom via this link (here you can find instructions on how to join events on Zoom, in case you have never used this platform before).

Final aperitif by food designer Agnese Z'graggen with Capichurri.

The SUPSI Campus in Mendrisio is located opposite the railway station and bus terminal.

A plant neurobiologist, scientist and populariser, he is considered one of the world’s leading scholars on plant intelligence and their ability to communicate, learn and adapt to their environment.

A full professor at the University of Florence, he directs the International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology (LINV) with offices in Florence and Japan. He was the first Italian scientist to be invited as a speaker at TED Global in Oxford in 2010. In 2014, he founded Pnat Project Nature, a start-up at the University of Florence for the creation of innovations and technology inspired by plants. With Pnat, he patented Jellyfish Barge, a floating module for growing vegetables and flowers that is completely autonomous in terms of soil, water and energy. Among the awards he has received over the years is the 2018 Galileo Prize (one of the most prestigious awards for scientific non-fiction) for his book Plant revolution. He is the author of several podcasts in which he recounts anecdotes, studies and stories that can change the way we humans have always looked at the plant kingdom.

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