Marta Re Ferrè, Author at Politecnico di Milano School of Management

Giorgio Locatelli wins an IPMA Global Research Award 2023

Posted on 22 March 2023 | by Marta Re Ferrè | Leave a Comment

With his project “The successful planning and delivery of megaprojects: a short and long term perspective”

Giorgio Locatelli, professor of the Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering, has won an IPMA Global Research Award 2023.

The IPMA Awards recognise project managers who give their best to achieve the desired outcomes for stakeholders, organisations or society, dealing with ever-increasing complexity and volatility. The judges evaluated the applications based on the following criteria: research problem, research processes, research results, and research people.

The ten-year research work of Professor Locatelli finds a compendium in the project “The successful planning and delivery of Megaprojects: a short and long term perspective”.

Megaprojects are projects characterised by large investment commitment (often above 1 billion USD), vast complexity (especially in organisational terms), and long-lasting impact on the economy, the environment, and society.

Locatelli’s research was aimed at rigorously identifying the megaproject characteristics shaping project management success indicators (respecting time, budget, scope – phase 1) and long-term project success indicators (sustainability, value creation for stakeholders etc. – phase 2).

Phase 1 developed and applied an innovative benchmarking methodology combining qualitative and quantitative analysis to collect, select, and investigate good and bad practices and learn from a portfolio of megaprojects. The methodology has been applied to large transportation infrastructure, power plants, and nuclear reactor decommissioning.

Phase 2 leveraged a wider range of theories and approaches. For instance, a social identity perspective to investigate the impact of megaproject environmental responsibility on organisational citizenship behaviours for the environment, a micro foundation perspective to study people’s experience in megaproject; quantitative statistical methods as a structural modelling approach to study Firm and project innovation outcome measures in infrastructure megaprojects.

CFA Research Challenge 2023: Politecnico di Milano wins the Italian phase

Posted on 7 March 2023 | by Marta Re Ferrè | Leave a Comment

Five students from Politecnico di Milano beat Federico II University of Naples and Ca’ Foscari University of Venice with Technogym’s financial analysis and are now preparing for the EMEA regional competition. The world grand final will be held on 3 May 2023.

The School of Management team of Politecnico di Milano wins the Italian final of the CFA Research Challenge 2023, a global finance competition sponsored by CFA Institute and promoted in our country by CFA Society Italy with the support of PwC Italia and Kaplan Schweser.

The final involved 10 universities, 48 students and over 30 professionals and took place at the PwC Italia headquarters in Milan on Tuesday 28 February. Teams from the following universities participated in the Italian phase, coordinated by CFA Society Italy: Università Cattolica of Milan, Politecnico di Milano, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Tor Vergata University of Rome, University of Florence, University of Bologna, Sapienza University of Rome, University of Pavia, Polytechnic University of Marche and Federico II University of Naples.

Under the guidance of professors Laura Grassi and Marco Giorgino and mentor Giacomo Saibene, Management Engineering students Alberto Giannetto, Gabriel Mazzante, Andrea Marconi, Giulio Galloni and Alberto Peccol presented their financial analysis on the Technogym stock to a jury of six financial sector experts: Roberto Sollevanti, Andrea Bonfà, Mauro Baragiola, Alberto Mari, CFA, Angelo Meda, CFA, CIPM, Pinuccia Parini.

Politecnico di Milano will continue directly to the EMEA regional semi-finals (Europe, Middle East and Africa), to be held next 6-7 April. As evidence of the high quality of our students and of the professionals who follow them, Italy already won the EMEA regional final in 2011, 2014, 2016 and 2022.

The world grand final will be held on 3 May 2023, where the EMEA, America and Pacific Asia winners will be competing against each other.

“This victory represents an important milestone in our professional careers, and we are proud of our hard work to achieve it. The CFA Research Challenge has given us the opportunity to measure ourselves against other students from other universities and to put into practice the topics we have studied during our academic careers.” These were the first words expressed by Alberto Giannetto, Gabriel Mazzante, Andrea Marconi, Giulio Galloni and Alberto Peccol, members of the winning Italian team. “We sincerely thank our teachers Laura Grassi and Marco Giorgino and our mentor Giacomo Saibene. Without them we would never have reached this milestone. We are looking forward to the next phase of the competition and feel confident moving forward.”

“Over the past 10 years, the Politecnico team has always been able to show its skill both at Italian and international level.” So said Politecnico di Milano professors Laura Grassi, Assistant Professor of Investment Banking, and Marco Giorgino, Full Professor of Financial Markets and Institutions. “As their professors, we are very proud of the skills that our School instils in them, allowing them to achieve these excellent results which are confirmed year after year.”

“After my experience of participating in the CFA Research Challenge as a student in 2011, it has been a great pleasure, as well as an incredible thrill, to mentor this time, helping this amazing team to challenge their limits and construct a solid critical analysis and careful financial evaluation.” said Giacomo Saibene, mentor of the winning team and member of the Italian team that won the world competition in 2011.

“The Research Challenge is an initiative that directs towards important objectives in the world of education and academia. Bringing students closer to the world of work by combining academic knowledge with the techniques and tools used by professionals in the financial sector is getting more and more relevant. Furthermore, we want excellence of our Italian universities to stand out at a European and global level.” commented Giuliano Palumbo, CFA, President of CFA Society Italy.

“In its work over the years, CFA Society Italy has forged a strong relationship with Italian universities to promote the principles of integrity and professional excellence among the younger generations.” said the project co-ordinator, Giuseppe Quarto di Palo, CFA. “We are happy to be able to offer universities and their promising students the opportunity to measure themselves in a realistic competition aimed at reproducing the experience of research offices at management companies or investment houses. The best students are also offered scholarships to access the CFA Programme: our wish is to enable them to obtain a globally recognised certification in the financial sector.”

HumanTech: a 2023-2027 “Excellence Departments” project

Posted on 9 February 2023 | by Marta Re Ferrè | Leave a Comment

The Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering presents the Humantech project and becomes one of the excellence departments of the Italian Ministry of University and Research

The Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering (DIG) is among the 180 Italian departments selected and funded by the Ministry of University and Research (MUR) for the period 2023-2027 within “Dipartimenti di Eccellenza” (Law 232/2016), the ministerial initiative aimed at rewarding the departments that stand out for the quality of their research and at financing specific development projects.

The DIG submitted to the MUR a departmental research development project focused on the topic HumanTech – Humans and Technology whose objective is to redefine the relationship between technology and human beings so as to enable a sustainable digital transition of industrial systems.

The rationale for the project is the pressing need to promote the evolution of the current technological development model – centred around the maximization of the economic result – towards a more harmonious model which takes into account the implications of industrial production for humans, society and environment, as well as the economic and financial aspects. The aim here is to propose new models and processes for the development and adoption of technologies, capable of accelerating the transition towards sustainable, inclusive industrial systems that make individual and collective well-being a priority.

For more information: https://www.som.polimi.it/en/humantech/

Studying Management Engineering thanks to a scholarship

Posted on 13 January 2023 | by Marta Re Ferrè | Leave a Comment

The number of students enrolling in the management engineering course increases every year: this multidisciplinary course is highly valued on the job market. Not everyone has the financial means to support this educational pathway, especially considering the cost of living in Milan. For this reason, and to ensure the university doesn’t lose talented potential students who would otherwise be unable to study at the Politecnico, the School of Management organizes a fundraiser every year in support of deserving students in financial need, so that they can fulfil their dream of studying Management Engineering at the Politecnico di Milano.

In the three-year period 2020-2022 the Politecnico received over €10 million in donations from private individuals and companies.

Supporting merit is the primary objective of the community: indeed, around half of these funds were used to finance about 500 merit-based or needs-based scholarships awarded to Politecnico students.

Anuar Mancini, 22 years old, is one of the ‘2022 scholarship holders’, one of the many young people who – thanks to the support of donors – are laying the foundations for their future at the Politecnico di Milano.

“After my Bachelor’s degree in management engineering, I will continue with a Master’s degree at the Politecnico: I really value the technical and quantitative approach of this university,” he says. “My Bachelor’s thesis was the result of a five-month internship at SNAM, where I worked on the implementation of an interactive monitoring system using KPI dashboards, to evaluate the impact of maintenance on CNG and LNG methane dispensing stations.”

“These scholarships, established thanks to donations by Management Engineering Alumni and all the friends of the Management Engineering Department, are a concrete way of helping deserving students to embark on a path of personal growth and professional development that will lead them to become skilled management engineers” comments Professor Marika Arena, coordinator of the management engineering course.

Click here to read the complete interview.

Gianluca Spina scholarships to study Management Engineering

Posted on 6 December 2022 | by Marta Re Ferrè | Leave a Comment

Continuing your studies after high school is an important investment in your future, both personally and economically.
To provide deserving young people with the opportunity to study Management Engineering, the Politecnico di Milano, in collaboration with the Gianluca Spina Association, offers four scholarships for the undergraduate course in Management Engineering, reserved for new students enrolled in the 2022-2023 academic year.

Thesee new scholarships were made possible thanks to the generous donation by Isabella and Raffaele Valletta to the Politecnico di Milano. The scholarships, by express wish of the Valletta family, are named after Professor Gianluca Spina.

One of the four scholarships – which cover the three years of study – is reserved for female students who want to pursue a career in Management Engineering, to promote gender equality.

Scholarship winners are also offered a Mentorship Programme, provided by Alumni and Management Engineering students.

To consult the call and the award criteria: click here.
For further details: Laurea Triennale > Studia con noi > Borse Gianluca Spina.

Why choose a future in Management Engineering?

People who choose to study Management Engineering acquire solid skills that allow them to operate in multiple business sectors, to respond to the changes in organization and innovation that companies have to implement in order to maintain their competitiveness.

In particular, management engineers design and manage systems in which technology interacts in a complex manner with economics and organization. Thanks to the multidisciplinary profile, management engineers can work in different sectors and roles within a company: consultancy, industry, manufacturing or services, as well as banking, insurance, utilities, public administration and non-profit sectors.

In 2021, 632 students graduated in Management Engineering from the Politecnico di Milano.
173 did not continue with postgraduate study at the Politecnico. Of these, 139 took part in the annual employment survey.

Source: GRADUATE EMPLOYMENT DATA BOOK 2021 – Management Engineering – Politecnico di Milano.

AIRIC: First Annual Meeting

Posted on 2 December 2022 | by Marta Re Ferrè | Leave a Comment

Presentation of the Politecnico di Milano centre for applied research in artificial research

AIRIC, the Politecnico di Milano’s Artificial Intelligence Research and Innovation Centre, held its first Annual Meeting on Monday 21 November.

The meeting was an opportunity to introduce the new centre which brings together the Politecnico’s core expertise in artificial intelligence and process innovation, and to share the results of the first research projects which were presented directly by the first businesses to support the initiative.

AIRIC positions itself as an extremely innovative research centre. Inspired by the best international experience, at the heart of AIRIC is its multidisciplinary approach: technical skills for the development of algorithms and artificial intelligence tools, which naturally sit within the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering, and management and project management capabilities, provided by the Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering. Likewise, AIRIC also draws on collaboration with all other departments, from both a technical and an applied perspective.

AIRIC’s mission is to help businesses to understand the potential of artificial intelligence, to guide them in the introduction of AI to their processes and products and to support them in the development of internal capabilities that are a match for future challenges. The crown jewel of the collaboration is the ability to develop ad hoc solutions, including by assisting the business with the transition and any technical training necessary: an essential combination for the creation of a competitive advantage and the expert use of AI in order to deliver business value.

AIRIC is directed by professors Nicola Gatti and Marcello Restelli from the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering and by Giovanni Miragliotta from the Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering.

NEXT GENERATION UPP: a project to improve the justice system in Northwest Italy

Posted on 20 October 2022 | by Marta Re Ferrè | Leave a Comment

NEXT GENERATION UPP seeks to provide a more efficient method for managing judicial affairs and thus help reduce the backlog and the average length of judicial proceedings.

NEXT GENERATION UPP is coordinated by the University of Turin in partnership with eleven universities in Northwest Italy – including the Politecnico di Milano with the Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering, the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering and the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies. The project is promoted by the Ministry of Justice within the framework of the NOP on Governance and Institutional Capacity 2014-2020 and carried out in synergy with the interventions envisaged by the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) in support of justice reform.

Next Generation UPP aims to improve the justice system in Northwest Italy through the strengthening of Trial Offices (UPP), technological innovation, and trialling new collaborative schemes between universities and judicial offices. It is aimed at courts in the Macro Area 01, which includes the Appeal Courts of Brescia, Genoa, Milan and Turin, the Courts and the Juvenile Courts of the corresponding districts.

In particular the working group from the Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering, led by Prof. Giancarlo Vecchi, is mapping the organisation of the Trial Office at the Appeal Court and the Court of Milan.
The analysis seeks to show in detail the organisational solutions put in place, the strengths and weaknesses and the impact in terms of reduction of backlog and disposition time, i.e., the time taken to reach final determination in judicial proceedings. In addition, it will design and trial innovative organisational solutions to consolidate, strengthen and transfer the obtained results.

The project, launched on 1 April 2022, will be concluded on 30 September 2023.

For more information:
Prof. Giancarlo Vecchi: giancarlo.vecchi@polimi.it

Food Policy. The fifth district hub against food waste opens

Posted on 26 September 2022 | by Marta Re Ferrè | Leave a Comment

A new collection and storage centre for surplus food from various large-scale distribution chains to expand the network of district hubs that are taking action against food waste, set up by the City of Milan in collaboration with local partners and associations.

The new Centre Hub, which officially opened today, is located on the premises of Associazione IBVA, on Via Santa Croce 15, next to Solidando, the social market that has been committed to fighting food poverty for years.

Alongside the Gallarate, Isola and Lambrate Hubs, as well as the Foody Hub in the Milan agri-food market, the opening of the Centre Hub signifies a new point of contact in the City of Milan’s network that is fighting against food waste and supporting food aid initiatives in the city – a network which has already been awarded the Earthshot Prize in 2021 and is setting an international standard.

The opening of the Centre Hub was possible thanks to a tried and tested public-private partnership model. In particular, the initiative has been promoted by the City of Milan’s Food Policy department, IBVA, Municipality 1, Fondazione Cariplo, Assolombarda and the Politecnico di Milano through their Food Sustainability Observatory. The Hub was created thanks to the generous contributions of the Banca di Credito Cooperativo di Milano. A fair and green product collection and delivery service will be provided thanks to the partnership with So.De, the socially-conscious, supportive and sustainable delivery service.

District Hubs against food waste: statistics

A total of four hubs are already active throughout the Milan area: the Hub in Zone 4 at Foody – Milan’s agri-food market – which represents the evolution of the Fruit and Vegetable Hub, developed during the 2020 lockdown and thanks to which 138 tonnes of fresh produce were distributed over eight weeks; the Isola district Hub (Zone 9); the Lambrate Hub (Zone 3); the Gallarate Hub (Zone 8).

The initiative’s data monitoring is carried out thanks to its collaboration with the Politecnico di Milano’s Food Sustainability Observatory, as well as the support of Assolombarda with the Isola, Lambrate and Gallarate Hubs, and its collaboration with the University of Milan for the Foody Hub.

In 2021, the two hubs that had been set up in the Isola and Lambrate districts collected a total of over 170 tonnes of food, equating to about 340,000 meals. In the first half of 2022, these two hubs were also joined by the Gallarate and Foody hubs, which in the first six months of that year alone collected 130 tonnes, equating to over 260,000 meals.

In total, more than 3,000 households have been helped thanks to the work of the district hubs and the cooperation of a dozen brands involved across almost thirty outlets.

BUDD-e: a project to support citizens with visual impairments

Posted on 13 May 2022 | by Marta Re Ferrè | Leave a Comment

The Budd-e research project is a programme committed to improving the quality of life of visually impaired citizens to help to build a more equal and inclusive society by taking advantage of technological innovations.

The SARS-COV2 pandemic has significantly impacted everyone’s life, changing our habits and how we interact with others and our immediate environment. Among those most affected are people with visual impairments, who are considered to be at greater risk of contagion due to their need for tactile contact with people and spaces to be able to move and orientate themselves more easily.
Therefore, without touch, these people have seen their autonomy and quality of life become increasingly limited.

Isolation was even more severe for those with severe degrees of visual impairment. There are around 2 million such people in Italy, while at the global level they represent around 4% of the population. It is a significant “slice” of society for which technology could play a significant role in improving quality of life.

How can technological innovation be exploited to ensure independent and safe access to various spaces such as shopping centres, museums, hospitals or even athletics tracks?

Improving the quality of life of citizens with visual impairments through the opportunity to enjoy these and other spaces independently and safely is the ambitious objective of the multidisciplinary “BUDD-e” (Blind-assistive Autonomous Drive Device) research project, which was among the winners of the Polisocial Award (2021 Edition) – the Politecnico di Milano’s social responsibility programme financed with “5×1000” funds.

BUDD-e is an innovative person-robot system that incorporates a self-driving robot and was conceived based on the specific needs of blind or partially sighted people and the design of spaces made accessible thanks to the functionalities of the robot. BUDD-e will contribute to building a more equal and inclusive civil society.
BUDD-e will be capable of guiding and supporting blind or partially sighted people during their day-to-day activities – including the possibility of transporting goods – while maintaining the required speed and/or trajectory, by transmitting relevant information on the available routes via audible signals, thus avoiding collisions.

The research project – which will last 15 months and is coordinated by Prof. Marcello Farina from the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering and Prof. Emanuele Lettieri from the Department of Management, Economics, and Industrial Engineering – is characterised by the integration of several distinct areas of expertise within the Politecnico di Milano, ranging from engineering to management economics, from architecture to service design.

The research group may rely on the involvement of partners such as the UICI (Italian Union of the Blind and Partially Sighted), the ASST Niguarda Hospital regional healthcare agency, the non-profit organisations ICM (Milan Institute for the Blind Foundation), DISABILINCORSA, Tactile Vision and GSD Non Vedenti Milano (NVM) amateur sports group, as well as ASP Golgi Redaelli, YAPE S.r.l. and POLIMISPORT.
Lastly, the project will be conducted under the clinical and medical supervision of Dr Luigi Piccinini from the Scientific Institute for Research, Hospitalization and Health Care (IRCCS) Medea.

The team of researchers from the Department of Management, Economics, and Industrial Engineering, headed by Prof. Emanuele Lettieri and Mr. Andrea Di Francesco will be committed to assessing the social impact generated by the BUDD-e project through the development of a specific methodology that allows the relevant details to be understood.

For further information you might refer to the website of the project BUDDE-e and to the website of the Interdepartmental Laboratory “Engineering for Sport” (E4Sport).

Symplatform 3: the conference on digital platforms

Posted on 25 February 2022 | by Marta Re Ferrè | Leave a Comment

There is a word that is appearing more and more frequently in the newspapers, in our meeting and in the LinkedIn feeds and that word is “platform”.

Whether talking about a new scandal by one of the big tech companies, the new innovation strategy of a large industrial group …or just a new digital service, the word “platform” appears in a variety of sectors.

But what does platform really mean? What do Uber, Amazon, Apple and any old daily newspaper have in common? Or why it is correct to consider an app like Strava, the famous service for tracking sports performance, a platform? These and many other issues are at the heart of Symplatform: an event where academic knowledge encounters the world of practitioners to construct a critical discussion on what platforms are, how they work and what they can become for people, organisations and our society as a whole.

We are pleased to launch the third edition of Symplatform, a symposium on digital platforms that aims to bring academics and practitioners together.

Symplatform is a joint project developed by Trinity College Dublin, the Politecnico di Milano School of Management and the Audencia Business School.

Here is a short video presenting the conference.

The event programme and registration can be found at this link: https://symplatform.com/

For further information, write to daniel.trabucchi@polimi.it and tommaso.buganza@polimi.it.

Author: Marta Re Ferrè