When a state competes with its people over resources : What kind of cooperation? : What kind of partnership? .

Resources are the key point of our relationship with the planet Earth and the tuning of this relationship is the core goal of every human activity claiming to be sustainable. In this context, there is growing concern over the paradigm on which International Cooperation (IC) is currently working. Universities have a role to play in shaping and spreading the new “development” paradigm. From this point of view, each component of a university should take action. University cooperation, always in collaboration with civil society, could fill the emerging gap between the states who follow the direction of the global economic system and populations, more and more in need of the proper tools to get an equally diffused, grassroots ecological development. This short paper will argue this point of view by presenting a small student association born inside the Faculty of Agronomy in Milan.