There is a memory that comes back overwhelmingly in the mind of Francesco Billari when he is asked where his interest in demography, which he teaches at Bocconi University, originates from: his fifth-grade essay on the most widely spoken languages ​​of the world, when he had put together the data for each single country, since "there were no ready-made statistics." In doing so, he was combining those elements that would accompany him for life: a passion for data, geography and the study of the world through the study of people. He lacked a place to call home, where he could shape and develop all this. Bocconi has become that place. A home he sometimes had to leave for international projects, including the leadership of a research group in the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock or as Chair of the Department of Sociology at the University of Oxford. But it is an academic home (“thatI wish to take care of”) that he always returns to and has been leading as Rector since November 1st.

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