The Roots of the Community. With Stefano Mancuso

A scientist and science communicator, Stefano Mancuso is one of the world’s leading authorities dedicated to studying and sharing a new understanding of plants—intelligent and sentient beings capable of making choices, learning, and remembering. A full professor at the University of Florence and a full member of the Accademia dei Georgofili, he directs the International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology, with locations in Florence, Kitakyushu, Bonn, and Paris. In 2010, he was the first Italian scientist to be invited as a speaker at a TED Global event held in Oxford; his talk has since been viewed over 1.4 million times on the TED website alone.
In 2014, he founded PNAT, a University of Florence startup dedicated to developing plant-inspired technology. In 2016, he won the Austrian Ministry of Science and Technology’s “Wissenschaftsbuch des Jahres” award for the best science book of the year. He made his debut as an author in 2013 with the publication of the multi-award-winning bestseller Verde brillante through Giunti. In 2018, his book Plant Revolution won the 2018 Galileo Prize, the most prestigious award for scientific non-fiction. This was followed by L’incredibile viaggio delle piante (2018) with Laterza, La Nazione delle Piante (2019), winner of the Capalbio Prize and the Earth Prize; La pianta del mondo (2021), winner of the Luigi Russo Pozzale Prize; and Fitopolis, la città vivente (2023). In 2022, he published The Tribe of Trees with Einaudi, his first work of fiction. His books have been translated into 27 languages. He is also the creator of various podcasts, including Di sana Pianta, produced in 2023 for Chora Media in collaboration with the Elastica literary agency. In 2022, he was awarded the Fiorino d’Oro, the highest honor bestowed by the City of Florence, and was appointed scientific director of the newly established Foundation for the Future of Cities.