Ezio Bussoletti was born in Bari, is married, has three children, and has lived in Rome since 1959. He graduated with honors from La Sapienza University in Space Physics in February 1970. He specialized in Paris during his two-and-a-half-year stay with an ESRO-Postdoctoral scholarship, also obtaining a Doctorat d’État ès Sciences, with honors, again in Space Physics, in 1973. Upon his return to Italy, he was called to the University of Lecce at the end of 1973, quickly rising through the ranks to become Associate Professor in 1983 and then to Naples, to the Naval University Institute (since 2000, Parthenope University), where he was awarded the Chair of Space Astrophysics in November 1986.
In Lecce, he created the first Italian Cosmic Physics Laboratory specializing in the study of cosmic material both using instruments on board space probes and in the laboratory. He participated in the
creation of an experiment mounted on ESA’s Giotto probe, which encountered Halley’s Comet on March 13, 1986. In Naples, he created a new laboratory, which was expanded with the arrival of young qualified scientists, allowing participation in various NASA missions until the great success achieved with the creation of an instrument that flew in ESA’s Rosetta mission, a probe that landed on the nucleus of a comet.
Ezio Bussoletti, a member of the CNR National Space Plan since 1985, participated in the creation of ASI in 1988 and shared institutional responsibilities in the Scientific and Technological Committees, becoming Vice President of the Board of Directors in 2009, as appointed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In parallel with his research activities, since 1983 he has been intensely involved in both the space and environmental sectors, appointed by the European Commission as Advisor to the DG Industry and JRC (1994-1999); he coordinated the WG “High Level Group of Space Industries in Europe” and then drafted the European Space Plan requested by Commissioner E. Cresson in 1996 and presented by her, “The European Union and Space: fostering applications, markets and industrial competitiveness” (COM(96) 617 final, 04.12.1996).
He has been a member of various national and international technical-scientific committees (ISTAG, IPTS-JCR, ESA, IPHE, ANPA-APAT, ICRAM). He was head of the Italian delegation in GMES (and
Chairman of the Security Committee) since its creation, which later became COPERNICUS, and co-founder, in 2003, with the US and major European delegations of GEO, the Intergovernmental Group
of EO until 2014. He held a similar role from its foundation in 2011 to 2022 with UN-GGIM (United Nations Initiative on Global Geospatial Information Management) in As Space Advisor to the pro-tempore Minister of the Environment, he participated in G8 meetings (2004-2005, 2009).
At the national level, he has been a member of all committees related to the activities and governance of the space sector, including those of territorial and environmental relevance (CNR, MUR-MIUR; Min. Environment, Presidency of the Council, MAECI). Over the last 10 years, he has mainly dealt with the environment and territory as a member of the VIA-VAS and COVIS commissions. As ASI Vice President in 2011, he participated in the drafting of the programmatic guidelines “Government guidelines on Italian space and aerospace matters,” a role he continued to hold from 2018 to 2023 as Space Advisor to the MIT and then to the Ministry of Environment, also participating in COMINT meetings. Ezio Bussoletti was also Scientific Advisor to the Italian Representation at UNESCO from 2004 to 2007, dealing with issues related to the environment and scientific research.