Teresa Andreani

My research stay at the Institute

In January 2025 I left Italy, where I am currently enrolled as a Doctoral researcher at Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies of Pisa, to carry a three-month research stay at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Policy (MPISOC) in Munich. This enriching opportunity was financially supported through DAAD-Stiftung by Sabine Hackspiel, who I was extremely happy to know personally and with whom I had the chance to discuss my research perspectives on the evolution of the rights of older people in the field of care.

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Virtual meeting with my sponsor Sabine Hackspiel

My Doctoral project explores the legal evolution of the Italian Long-term Care systems (LTC) for dependent older people and frames it within the European context. For this reason, I naturally decided to join the MPISOC or its structural Law&Policy approach, as well as its international and comparative atmosphere, with the aim to benefit from the Institute's expertise in Long-term care issues and its prestigious research environment.

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View on Munich

Located at the heart of Munich, the institute was a good location to carry out my research activities. During my research stay, I have advanced my research tasks in multiple ways. As a way of example, I have re-assessed my research question and structure, thus considerably advancing the construction of my PhD Thesis. At the same time, on the 19th of February, I publicly defended my research outline, thus collecting significant comments and recommendations to improve my work in progress.

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Presentation

During my presentation, the research staff was composed of 10 individuals, most of which were PhD students enrolled at the Institute: aside of a couple of questions coming from them, it was difficult to stimulate the conversation around my research proposal, and this was the only occasion I had to interact with my supervisor, the Institute's Director, who gave some feedback on my research project. Anyways, it was a good opportunity to visualize existing research gaps, such as the necessity to dive into EU&Policy in depth, and gain ideas on how to improve my work.

Beside this important event, it was hard to exchange ideas with the research staff, due to the absence of specific initiatives to substantially facilitate the integration of guest researchers and to promote the creation of a welcoming and inclusive environment, within and outside the workplace, as well as to interact with other PhD students. To fight this general sense of isolation that was largely perceived by other guest researchers too, I have tried to organize several positive and valuable opportunities to discuss European social law through books as well as to explore the German social system of Long-term Care with available colleagues.

My life in Munich

Despite most of my time was devoted to research, I truly enjoyed living in the vibrant atmosphere of Munich, which I experienced by living in the very central Isaar district, in a cozy shared apartment located next to the river Isar. Surrounded by parks, I loved living in this central area of the city, and I particularly enjoyed spending some dinners at the Iranian café and Turkish taverna near my house.

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Dinner with friends

In absence of work-related opportunities to socialize and due to the scarce opportunity to meet new people, I spent my free time exploring the historic city centre and its attractions and shops, mostly on my own or with friends visiting me during weekends. Particularly, I enjoyed the area of Sendling Tor, and my favorite spots were the monumental cemetery (Alter Südfriedhof), a baroque church (Asamkirche) as well as the University area (MaxVorstadt) and its interesting museums, where I discovered a wonderful second-hand bookshop and I participated in student nightlife for a few times.

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Pottery lessons in Munich

To refresh my mind, I also joined pottery sessions several times as I previously had some experience of this kind during my research stay in Jerusalem: that's why I also took my German friend, who I met in Jerusalem and visited me in Munich from Berlin, to attend one of these classes. Also, since the gastronomical offer was very large in the city, I discovered restaurants and bars and, for example, I tried Brazilian food for the first time as well as Vietnamese and Chinese cuisines.

I loved the vibrant atmosphere of the city, and this is also why I did not travel around that much to know it to the fullest: during my research stay, I only visited Nuremberg and Hamburg for the first time, and I enjoyed a lot both their diverse architecture and cultural lives. Cultural life was a significant part of my experience in Munich: I visited multiple times history and art museums, such as the Moderne and Alte Pinakothek, as well as the Lenbachaus, that gave me a powerful sense of connection with the city itself.