BRAINstorm is set to take place from January 13 to 23 in 2025, the same dates as the Games, and will be see competitions in nine mind sports disciplines.

It is being held in conjunction with four universities in Piemonte: Università di Torino, Politecnico di Torino, Università di Scienze Gastronomiche di Pollenzo and Università del Piemonte Orientale.

The quartet are due to decide which disciplines are contested at the event which is expected to see around 1,000 students take part.

"The Turin 2025 project is to realise an inclusive event, which wants to go far beyond the sporting part," said Turin 2025 President Alessandro Ciro Sciretti at the International Book Fair in the Italian city.

"A great event like the Universiade must live on many aspects, promote Regione Piemonte and its university system, which, when it networks, goes even stronger.

"The goal of the World University Winter Games is for the entire system to come out stronger than it was before, and the launch of the Italian challenge is just the first step in this project, which we expect to be welcomed by all the universities of the world, so that the best minds can work on a better future and challenge each other in the first edition of BRAINstorm in January 2025."

The four universities have also chosen development themes for BRAINstorm to be held under. 

These are promoting sustainable society, retooling democracy, public health and quality of life, "space: the final frontier", "city of the future", green energy, inequalities, aging, and "food for the future".

"BRAINstorm is an opportunity to make an extraordinary event like the Universiade even more innovative, with the desire to highlight champions of knowledge, as well as of sport," said Università di Torino vice-president Alberto Rainoldi.

"We thus have the opportunity to make ideas compete, before people, in order to contaminate them and make them mature; to connect talents, therefore, to increase the potential for creativity and innovativeness developed through the acquisition of scientific knowledge.

"In the same way, we also have the opportunity to give substance to a large international network of students with the desire to get involved to design the future, to give new horizons to the development of tomorrow's society."