Category: Events

Financial Times: il MIP Politecnico di Milano is placed second in Europe among business schools belonging to technical univerisities

Posted on | by Angela Leone | Leave a Comment on Financial Times: il MIP Politecnico di Milano is placed second in Europe among business schools belonging to technical univerisities

MIP Politecnico di Milano, part of the university’s School of Management, has bettered its position in the FT European Business School Rankings 2021

MIP Politecnico di Milano, the Graduate School of Business at Politecnico di Milano’s School of Management, has again this year improved its position at the upper echelons of business schools in Europe.

According to the Financial Times European Business Schools Ranking 2021, published today, MIP has climbed to second place in Europe among the best business schools belonging to a technical university (Politecnico di Milano) bettered only by Imperial College Business School (UK). Last year, it was in third place. The confirmation of MIP’s excellent educational offer is highlighted in its improved position in the general ranking, where the Milan-based business school is 37th out of the 95 classified.

In the words of Vittorio Chiesa and Federico Frattini, President and Dean of MIP Politecnico di Milano, respectively: “Being in the apex zone of this classification of business schools that are part of a European technical university is a recognition of the effectiveness of our work and investment over this complex period to ensure the continuity of our offer. Rankings are certainly a key element that managers turn to when seeking to upskill themselves, and we can only be highly satisfied with this endorsement. We also know that, beyond rankings, we have a reputational value that strengthens our place as a reference point in education and training. The certification that we have received over the years and our ever increasing network of companies with whom we work, set MIP apart for its excellence in the field of lifelong learning, and a safe haven for those who, with reason, believe it to be a cornerstone for competing in a challenging market.”

The Financial Times also acknowledges the quality of the individual programmes taught at MIP, with two Masters advancing in its 2021 rankings. MIP’s MBA (Master in Business Administration) now in 34th place and EMBA (Executive Master in Business Administration) in 54th place, have climbed up by four and two places respectively, compared to 2020. In the Executive MBA, there is an improvement in the FT’s evaluation of the parameter Salary Today / Salary Increase, which compares the amount paid to managers three years after taking MIP’s EMBA against their pre-Master salary. On average, the salary of an MIP EMBA alumnus/a rises by 53%.

In the Financial Times top 10 ranking for business schools in the MIP “model” alone, meaning those that are part of a technical university, Politecnico di Milano’s business school is placed immediately behind Aalto University (Finland), TUM School of Management (Germany) and Institut Mines – Telecom Business School (France).

MIP’s educational portfolio of excellence covers about 40 Masters, including 7 MBAs and Executive MBAs, 200 open executive programmes and a series of training programmes customised for companies.

“From data science to data culture: the emergence of analytics-powered managers”: now online the new issue of SOMeMagazine

Posted on | by Beatrice Grillo | Leave a Comment on “From data science to data culture: the emergence of analytics-powered managers”: now online the new issue of SOMeMagazine

SOMe, our eMagazine which shares stories, points of view and projects around key themes of our mission, has just released its Issue #7.

“From data science to data culture: the emergence of analytics-powered managers” is the topic we discussed with our Faculty.

Carlo Vercellis tells how digital technologies and algorithms analysing data play a crucial role in human evolution and in the transformation of our ways of thinking and living.

Behind the strengthening of data culture in companies lies the need to confront with challenges of the competitive scenario, explains Giuliano Noci. While according to Filomena Canterino, this new approach implies also the revision of organizational and leadership models.

Our “Stories” report the excellent achievement of the Milan’s neighbourhood Hubs against food waste: the project, which the School of Management is partner of since 2017, won the first edition of the prestigious international Earthshot Prize for the best solutions to protect the environment, in the section “a world without waste”.
We share also recent update on the impact of our research with some data from the Research Impact Assessment, a tool recently implemented by our School to assess the impact of our projects on society as a whole. And finally the Erasmus+ project WiTECH (Entrepreneurship for Women in Tech) which promotes the presence of women in the ICT sector.

 

To read SOMe’s #7 click here.

To receive it directly in your inbox, please sign up here.

Previous issues of SOMe:

  • # 1 “Sustainability – Beyond good deeds, a good deal?”
  • Special Issue Covid-19 – “Global transformation, ubiquitous responses”
  • #2 “Being entrepreneurial in a high-tech world”
  • #3 “New connections in the post-covid era”
  • #4 “Multidisciplinarity: a new discipline”
  • #5 “Inclusion: shaping a better society for all”
  • #6 “Innovation with a human touch”

Data-powered management: a multifaceted challenge

Posted on | by Mirja Calgaro | Leave a Comment on Data-powered management: a multifaceted challenge

Behind a company’s declared need to strengthen its data culture lies a profound need to consolidate, enhance, develop or modify their business model, or the way they manage their business, in an informed manner. This is a compelling and pervasive need, linked to the observation of certain trends that are changing the competitive scenario.

 

Giuliano Noci, Professor of Strategy and Marketing and Vice Rector of the Chinese Campus of Politecnico di Milano

 

People who interact with companies are commonly told, “we need to strengthen our data culture”.

The concept of “data culture” has various undertones: the presence of data analysis skills, the ability to read and interpret analyses, the tendency of individuals and work teams to base their decisions on findings and data rather than on feelings and instinct, and efforts to collect and share the right data to support our own decisions and those of others.

Evidently, “data culture” is a combination of all these dimensions. Behind a company’s declared need to strengthen its data culture lies a profound need to consolidate, enhance, develop or modify their business model, or the way they manage their business, in an informed manner. This is a compelling and pervasive need, linked to the observation of certain trends that are changing the competitive scenario.

First of all, competition pressures, on markets that are increasingly saturated and also more and more interconnected, force us to seek out business models and innovations that enable functionality that is as useful as it is sophisticated. This leads to a quest for enhancement of the range of products and services offered, through data work, but not only. For example, if I want to make an electrical appliance stand out radically on the Western market, I will, within reason, have to connect it to the Internet and use the data it collects to offer value-added services to the customer (for example, in a refrigerator, not only report anomalies to enable technical maintenance in real time, but be able to notice when a milk carton is almost empty, and perhaps, based on the rate at which it is used, estimate when the milk will run out or with what frequency to suggest repurchasing it). What is more, it is clear that this type of innovation may bring about developments in the business model. For example, in the above case, integration with eCommerce systems can offer timely subscription-based refills.

Secondly, diversity in the target markets is calling for increasingly differentiated solutions from market segments that are highly heterogenous in terms of taste, preferences, product/service usage habits, and physical and digital channel usage behaviours in interacting with the company. These aspects require a practically one-to-one response from the company. From marketing automation to service automation, companies are increasingly seeking out models and algorithms that can gauge the health of their relationship with a customer, and how inclined they are to accept a new offer or abandon the company.

Thirdly and in fact as a result of the previous two cases, the focus of managerial activity is more and more characterised by the quest for accuracy, precision and waste reduction – in production, just as it is in marketing, sales, customer service, etc. Also in this case, data and the ability to read it are key levers.

Therefore, apart from the communicative effectiveness of the phrase “data culture”, the issue that arises is the development of an ability to combine advanced analytical skills with business acumen. This is a new skill in companies, and often one that is difficult to attribute to a single professional profile. Instead, it is attributed to a team. In fact, companies often hire data scientists with great analytical and technical expertise, but they do not always have managers able to bridge the gap between business needs and technical and modelling applications. Conversely, their personnel are not always able to translate analytical outputs into action plans that can drive the business.

Our school recognised this need when interacting with companies. As a result of this we have profoundly enhanced our range of machine learning and applied statistics courses and analytics courses applied to management disciplines (e.g. performance measurement, marketing, and even the public sector), with a Major, or specialisation, of the Master of Science with a strong analytical focus.  A large number of students have decided to enrol in these courses, and this outstanding success demonstrates that our young people know how important it is to acquire the professional expertise to build a strong “data-powered” career.

The pedagogical challenge, in this context, consists in condensing strong analytical training and an equally solid knowledge of the business impacts of the decision-making systems subject to modelling analysis, with an approach focused on studying these models in the context of the areas where their use is beneficial and promoting rich and extensive discussion on the further implications for the operating models of organisations.

 

 

 

Machine Learning & Big Data Analytics

Posted on | by Beatrice Grillo | Leave a Comment on Machine Learning & Big Data Analytics
Digital technologies and algorithms to analyse data represent the most recent evolution of intellectual technologies. They have transformed us into what we are today, into what we know, and into our ways of thinking. We live in close symbiosis with intellectual technologies and this will be increasingly the case with artificial intelligence algorithms

 

Carlo Vercellis, Full Professor of Machine Learning at School of Management, Politecnico di Milano

Most of our daily actions, purchases, movements, and personal or professional decisions are guided by a Machine Learning algorithm: it is convenient to receive suggestions about products to buy, hotels and means of transport for travel, and films or music we might like.

Many companies have been collecting large amounts of data in their information systems for decades. Credit card operators, who record almost two billion transactions over the course of a weekend, large retailers, Telco and utility providers.

However, the real revolution that has led to Big Data coincides with the advent of social networks, a phenomenon called the Internet of People. Each of us has gone from being a reader of information into an author of content. The need to store this immense and rapidly growing amount of data has led the large web companies to create a new type of database based on distributed network architectures and, in practice, to bring about the birth of the cloud.

In addition to people, there are now also ‘things’ on the Internet and this Internet of Things consists of countless objects equipped with sensors and often capable of intelligent and autonomous behaviour. We can turn on the lights in our homes from miles away, adjust our thermostats and watch through our video surveillance systems. Cars can drive autonomously without our intervention. This is a universe made up of almost 30 trillion sensors that record numerical values with a very high temporal frequency (one trillion is equal to ‘one’ followed by 18 ‘zeros’!). We also have digital meters for gas and power, capable of accurately recording how much we consume and suggesting behaviours to for more efficient sustainable use of energy. We wear fitness devices and smartwatches on our wrists, which record our physical activity, main vital parameters, eating habits, and the quality of our sleep, and provide us with useful suggestions to improve our physical condition. Smart objects that will help make our lives more and more comfortable.

From what we have said so far, it is clear that predictive value and applicative value help to generate great economic value, for businesses, for public administration, for citizens in general.

However, data in themselves are of no use if they are not automatically analysed by intelligent algorithms. In particular, machine learning algorithms in the field of artificial intelligence are applied to large volumes of data to recognise recurring regularities and to extract useful knowledge that makes it possible to predict future events with considerable accuracy. This is inductive logic, a bit like the learning mechanism of a child, to whom the mother points out a few examples of letters of the alphabet, enabling him in a short time to identify them independently and thus learn to read.

For example, algorithms are able to interpret the mood, the so-called ‘sentiment’, of text posts on social networks with 95-98% accuracy, which is higher than what a human reader could achieve. Similarly, algorithms are now able to perform automatic content and context recognition of analysed images with great precision.

Digital technologies and algorithms for analysing data represent the latest evolution of intellectual technologies and will help us live better. Suffice to think that throughout history, from the first prehistoric tools to the invention of writing, from the invention of printing to the conception of computers, intellectual technologies have been the driver behind human evolution. They have transformed us into what we are today, into what we know, and into our ways of thinking. We live in close symbiosis with intellectual technologies and this will be increasingly the case with artificial intelligence algorithms.

On the economic side, we observe that companies that are more mature in data analysis have a greater ability to compete and continue to strengthen compared companies that are less evolved and not as prompt in their adoption of digital innovation strategies. For years we have been used the term digital divide to refer to the gap between citizens with access to digital resources and those without. As part of the Big Data Analytics Observatory that we started up at Politecnico di Milano in 2008, last year we introduced the term Analytics Divide to indicate the gap that has been created and is unfortunately widening between companies that are virtuous in their use of big data and artificial intelligence and those that are less innovative, which will find it harder to get out of the swamp into which the virus has pushed us.

In order to progress as a data-driven company, it is however necessary to have adequate talent and skills, which can be obtained through the acquisition of new resources or the reskilling of resources already available in the company. With this in mind, at MIP-Politecnico di Milano we have launched several courses on Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Big Data Analytics, and Data Science, such as the international Master in Business Analytics & Big Data and the executive course in Data Science & Business Analytics.

WiTECH – Entrepreneurship for Women in Technology

Posted on | by Beatrice Grillo | Leave a Comment on WiTECH – Entrepreneurship for Women in Technology

WiTECH (Entrepreneurship for Women in Tech), a European education project fully funded by the Erasmus+ Programme, is designed to encourage women to stay in the ICT sector and to empower them to reach their full potential through the creation of businesses in this sector

Not only is there a growing gap across Europe between the demand and supply for ICT specialists, but women are overwhelmingly under-represented in this sector. Furthermore, women who do choose ICT face a higher risk of dropping out because of unfavourable working conditions and lack of career progress.

Funded by the EU’s Erasmus+ initiative, the WiTECH project is led by Politecnico di Milano (specifically, by the School of Management and by the Department of Electronic, Informatics, and Bioengineering, DEIB).
Besides Politecnico di Milano (POLIMI), the WiTECH consortium includes two other technological universities (Lappeenrannan–Lahden teknillinen yliopisto, LUT, and Technological University Dublin, TUM), three tech start-up hubs (PoliHub, The Startup Shortcut, and Digital Hub Development Agency), as well as a business school (L’Institut de préparation à l’administration générale IPAG) from four European countries.

The team consists of professors and experts in highly relevant technical, educational, economic, and managerial fields from POLIMI. These include Massimo G. Colombo (Full Professor in Entrepreneurship and Entrepreneurial Finance at SoM), Cristina Rossi-Lamastra (Full Professor of Business and Industrial Economics at SoM, with additional expertise in gender issues in business contexts), Mara Tanelli (Full Professor of Automatic Controls at DEIB), Nicoletta Trentinaglia (Senior Project Manager of e-learning, e-collaboration and learning innovation projects).
The project leaders from other partners are: Adnane Maalaoui (Director of Entrepreneurship Programmes – IPAG), Jussi Kasurinen  (Associate Professor and Head of Software Engineering Programmes – LUT), Barry Feeney  (Head of Department of Computing – TUD), Julia Witting-Mäklin (Director of Operations – The Shortcut).
The project also involves young scholars such as Silvia Stroe (Junior Researcher in Entrepreneurship at SoM) and Jie Li (PhD Student in Entrepreneurship at SoM).

Currently, the WiTECH project is putting together a blended learning course, which builds the skills and confidence that women with STEM qualifications need to create their own innovative businesses in ICT fields.
The heart of WITECH is a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course), which is conceived as a self-sustaining tool to encourage professors to innovate their teaching practices. It targets Master’s students in STEM subjects, by being freely available online, it is also intended to spark interest in ICT among high school girls to encourage them to choose this field of studies.
The course will be promoted widely across Europe, after the development and testing of its contents during 2022.

This blended learning course consists of three modules:

Module 1:  Entrepreneurship and management.
Notions of entrepreneurship (including social entrepreneurship), how to become an executive of the 21st century (new working culture, corporate-social responsibility, diversity in the workplace, etc.)

Module 2: Technology entrepreneurship.
The notions of entrepreneurship applied to the specific challenges of starting a business in technology sectors.

Module 3: Training at a tech startup or a tech hub.
Understanding the context of tech startups or tech hubs in the framework of technology entrepreneurial ecosystems.

WiTECH started in Oct 2019, and it is expected to be completed by the end of 2022.  All the course content is now ready and the MOOC format is being produced. The website has just been launched: https://witech.training/.
The Linkedin page of the project is: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/wi-tech/.

We welcome you to join us!

Neighbourhood Hubs against food waste win the Earthshot Prize

Posted on | by Marta Re Ferrè | Leave a Comment on Neighbourhood Hubs against food waste win the Earthshot Prize
Dedicated to environmental protection actions, Milan’s anti-food waste project won £1 million and support from the Royal Foundation for the next few years.

 

Milan, 18 October 2021 – On the night of Sunday, 17 October 2021, Prince William announced that the City of Milan, with its Neighbourhood Hubs Food Policy project against food waste, is the winner of the first prestigious international Earthshot Prize for the best solutions to protect the environment.

A month ago it was announced that Milan was one of the 15 finalists in the “a world without waste” section, and yesterday, live on the BBC and Discovery Channel, Prince William unveiled the winners after an international panel of experts selected Milan from 750 candidate initiatives from around the world.

Along with Milan in the other four categories of the award were winners from the Republic of Costa Rica for the protection of forests, India for the reduction of smoke emissions into the air, Berlin for the development of hydrogen technologies for energy production, and the Bahamas for the protection of coral reefs.

In Milan, the BBC arranged a link to London from a terrace overlooking the Duomo, which was attended by Deputy Mayor Anna Scavuzzo, with representatives of all the partners who bring this project to life.

The £1 million prize will be used to further develop these hubs and open new ones, ensuring their long-term sustainability and replicating this excellent practice in the network of cities working with Milan on food policy, starting with the network of C40 cities and the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact.

Winning the Earthshot prize is the recognition of a great team effort that has involved the entire city: thanks to the City Council and many organisations from the third sector, universities, large-scale retail trade and philanthropy operating in the area, Milan now has 3 neighbourhood hubs at Isola (2019), Lambrate (2020) and Gallaratese (2021).

The project was born in 2017 as a result of an alliance between the City of Milan, Politecnico di Milano (with the research group of the Food Sustainability Lab, Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering) Assolombarda, Fondazione Cariplo and the QuBì Programme.
The creation of the first Hub then brought in Banco Alimentare della Lombardia and saved over 10 tonnes of food per month, ensuring a stream of 260,000 equivalent meals in one year, reaching 3,800 people, thanks to the contribution of 20 supermarkets, 4 business canteens and 24 Third Sector organisations.

In particular, the Food Sustainability Observatory conducted a network feasibility study and monitored the hubs’ operation and the impact generated by the project, thus making it possible to build an extensible logistic model replicable in other areas of the city.

Indeed, this was followed by the launch of the Hub in Lambrate, immediately after the first lockdown in spring 2020, also managed by Banco Alimentare della Lombardia in a space made available by AVIS Milano and with the support of BCC Milano. The third Hub, at Gallaratese, is managed by Terre des Hommes with the support of the Fondazione Milan.

Another one, currently in the planning stage, will be the neighbourhood Hub in Corvetto, managed by the Banco Alimentare della Lombardia and with the support of the Fondazione SNAM; while the City of Milan has recently started the co-design process for the Hub in the city centre with Associazione IBVA and the support of BCC Milano.

 

The team of the Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering:
Alessandro Perego, Marco Melacini, Giulia Bartezzaghi, Annalaura Silvestro and Andrea Rizzuni from the Food Sustainability research group.

Partners involved:
The project involves major retailers including Lidl Italia, Esselunga, Carrefour, NaturaSi, Erbert, Coop Lombardia, Il Gigante, Bennet, Penny Market with the support of Number1 Logistics Group who provided the vans for the Isola and Lambrate hubs. Also involved were the canteens of Pirelli, Siemens, Deutsche Bank and Maire Tecnimont, coordinated by Gruppo Pellegrini for the Isola Hub.
With Fondazione Cariplo and SogeMi, the City of Milan has also launched the Foody zero waste initiative to replicate the hub model at Ortomercato and recover fresh food together with Banco Alimentare della Lombardia, Recup, Croce rossa sud milanese, Università degli studi di Milano and many other supporting partners.

Data culture and leadership culture: two sides of the same coin

Posted on | by Beatrice Grillo | Leave a Comment on Data culture and leadership culture: two sides of the same coin

Data experts are becoming key connectors in relationships within organisations. Data culture therefore brings with it the need to rethink organisational and leadership models

 

Filomena Canterino, Assistant Professor of People Management and Organization at School of Management, Politecnico di Milano 

For several years now, data analytics experts, the so-called data scientists and data analysts, have been among the most sought-after figures by companies across all sectors, from manufacturing and education to publishing. Their job is to gather, structure, analyse, interpret and summarise data, transforming it into information that is useful for the other players and decision-makers in an organisation.

Very often, the people in these roles are key connectors within the organisation, because they interact with individuals at various positions and levels, thus becoming reference points that transcend and, in some cases, even overturn traditional hierarchies. Data experts can in fact deliver great added value to almost all corporate areas, from maintenance and strategy to resources management and marketing. And in doing so, they interact with a host of different corporate players. Let us consider the typical example of the datafication of a production plant, in which a system of sensors is able to continuously gather real-time production performance data (for example, number of items manufactured, number of rejects, duration of downtime, number of breakdowns). By analysing and processing the data, and the information they manage to extrapolate from it, a data scientist or data expert can communicate effectively with operators, team leaders and top managers alike. They are able to give a voice to the machines, but also to the people who, armed with a more complete and detailed idea of the performance and potential areas for improvement, can put forward new solutions and ideas.

Just as often, unfortunately, people occupying these roles are superficially labelled as “nerds” and “geeks”, or other terms that allude to a certain familiarity with and interest in analytical and technical matters, and less interest or self-confidence in relationship, interpersonal and leadership aspects. Besides being narrow-minded – just think how many “nerds” are CEOs and leaders of big successful companies – this view is extremely limiting.

First of all, because it refers to an outdated view of the concept of leadership, i.e. innate, heroic leadership, based on “natural” charisma. Leadership experts and companies at the forefront with regard to these issues know all too well that people are not necessarily born leaders, but can become them – some with more effort than others, of course – simply because leadership is characterised by behaviours, or rather by actions that we can follow, practise and improve, and not by characteristics. So, surely also an individual with outstanding technical and analytical talent can identify and deploy the behaviours needed to interact with others and efficiently lead their team.
What is more, in the field of academic research, in which people have been aware for several decades of the fact that behaviour is more relevant than characteristics, the most recent studies have shown that leadership is actually a complex, dynamic and shared process in most cases, which stems from interaction between the various players of a system. If we look at it in this way, we could almost say that it could be more easily understood by individuals in charge of intercepting and interpreting data flows than by others.

Secondly, this type of view makes managing the development of these figures within organisations ineffective, precisely because it shines the spotlight on the wrong thing, i.e on the personal characteristics of those occupying a specific role, rather than on the organisation’s leadership model.

So what can be done to put these roles in a position to reach their full potential and develop their content- and process-based leadership qualities?

By all means, we can promote a cultural model that views leadership as something that is shared and widespread, based on actions and behaviour and on the concept of accountability – whereby each and every individual or small team is responsible for a small part of the result. All this can be achieved through coherent training and development plans across the entire organisation, as well as through digital technologies, which facilitate data acquisition and sharing to inform decisions and shorten hierarchical chains as a result. Data, accountability and shared leadership: a virtuous circle in which data experts can be true protagonists.

 

Research Impact Assessment: a continually evolving model

Posted on | by Beatrice Grillo | Leave a Comment on Research Impact Assessment: a continually evolving model

The Politecnico di Milano School of Management has been promoting a culture of assessment and improvement of research impact on institutions, companies, students, professors, citizens and academic communities since 2016

 

Federico Caniato, Full Professor of Supply Chain and Procurement Management at School of Management, Politecnico di Milano 
Stefano Magistretti, Assistant Professor of Innovation and Design Management at School of Management, Politecnico di Milano

The contribution made by universities to society is being called into question more and more often nowadays. They are therefore increasingly asked to measure and demonstrate this contribution, which is often described as an “impact”. The traditional approach consisted in identifying three major missions: research, training and the so-called “third mission”, a broad term encompassing interactions with society as a whole, such as technology transfer, cultural promotion and external communications. However, there is a limitation to this approach, as it risks seeing the three missions as separate activities, each with its own rules and metrics.

The School of Management has been working on this subject since 2016 with a more integrated approach. Rather than viewing the three missions as separate entities, research is seen as an engine able to generate impact on multiple domains, not only on the academic community and students, but on society in general. We promote a culture of research impact assessment and improvement for this reason, in line with our mission:

“to contribute to the collective good through a critical understanding of the opportunities offered by innovation. We accomplish this mission by creating and sharing knowledge through high quality teaching, exceptional research and active engagement with the community”.

When we embarked on this journey, we aimed, first and foremost, to encourage all our colleagues to reflect on the broader impact of their research projects. In the early years, we focused on stimulating critical thinking and encouraging the creation of an impact measurement culture. In the beginning, we did not assume that all projects, from the simplest to the most complex and the shortest to the longest, would have an impact on different areas of our school’s mission. However, this culture of measurement was, and still is to this day, fundamental in assessing and demonstrating the impact on many domains and not only on the most traditional indicators (e.g. number of academic publications and number of publications in newspapers).

We therefore felt the need to develop our own model to guide impact assessment throughout the SoM, which would enable us to pursue the following objectives:

  • Raising awareness throughout our entire community
  • Learning to assess the impact of research
  • Encouraging all our colleagues to plan, conduct and disseminate research aimed at having a measurable impact
  • Improving the capacity to account for the impact generated
  • Recognising the results of research conducted by the SoM
  • Publishing research results both within the SoM and externally

To meet these objectives, we built a model, inspired by the scientific literature, identifying five domains and three levels of maturity of research impact.
Impact is measured in the following five domains:

  1. Institutions
  2. Companies
  3. Students and professors
  4. Citizens
  5. The academic community

The impact on each domain is then measured on a three-level increasing maturity scale:

  • Communication of research results
  • Adoption of research results
  • Benefits obtained through adoption

This model was deliberately designed to be general, so that it could be adapted to the various themes and types of research conducted at the SoM. Precise indicators need to be identified for each domain and maturity level, and they should be quantitative wherever possible (e.g. number of participants at events, number of journal articles published, number of academic conferences organised), thus enabling us to measure and demonstrate impact. The indicators chosen should be consistent with the nature of each individual research project.

The model was tested first of all by a few colleagues who assessed 16 projects according to these dimensions in 2019. This enabled us to evaluate the soundness and validity of the model and identify many useful metrics for the various domains and different maturity levels.

In 2020, we invested in engaging everyone at the SoM in performing this important exercise, thereby broadening involvement and carrying out the Research Impact Assessment for 42 different projects conducted within the SoM, with at least one for each line of research of the SoM.
It was primarily an opportunity for training and reflection on the topic across the school, with sessions organised to give those involved a chance to exchange views and discuss the process.
A booklet was compiled with a summary and the main findings, featuring a wealth and variety of impacts. It will serve at first as a tool for internal communication to raise awareness and gather best practices.

Our work continues. We have already started gathering data for 2021, with a view to updating the information on the 42 projects and expanding participation even further. Our hope is that this exercise will make it increasingly possible not only to measure impact retrospectively, but also to plan the impact of research projects from the very outset. We also hope that this assessment will eventually cover all domains and reach the highest possible level of maturity, in other words, that of real benefits.

Specialize your MBA: choose what interests you most

Posted on | by Angela Leone | Leave a Comment on Specialize your MBA: choose what interests you most

The MBA experience at MIP is a choice towards empowerment and improvement: we want to strengthen our network, expand our horizons and increase our knowledge with lectures, seminars and hands-on experiences. In the International Part-Time MBA we have different cultural and academic backgrounds and work in a variety of industries: the diversity in the group is an opportunity for mutual enrichment, but on the other hand, each of us would like to explore different topics in more depth.

To this extent, our journey as students includes a personal window to implement the core courses with complementary ones of our own choice offered in the form of bootcamps. Those consist in a whole week deputed to delve into a specific multidisciplinary business problem: lectures by MIP Faculty professors are complemented by seminars given by professionals working in the industry to delineate a complete framework.
From a general overview, we are led to diving into the matter and given the knowledge to interpret the context and the tools to figure out a strategy for developing a solution with a teamwork assessment of a real problem. Moreover, bootcamps are offered to the wider community of MBA students at MIP, allowing us to combine our experiences, meet and enlarge our network.

Personally, I decided to attend the bootcamp on Artificial Intelligence and Big Data: I picked this one because I had pinpointed opportunities to apply it both in my job and in my future career and because it could provide ideas and suggestions for the project work, as with my group we aim to transform it into a real business project. As a team, we highlighted which bootcamps could provide insights to enrich our idea and split them between us in order to share the outcomes.

At the end of my personal window I can say that my expectations were exceeded: in particular, I ended up the bootcamp with a fresh new approach to the data I have to deal with in my job, applying the tools I learned to use to real problems and collecting new results. Moreover, this awareness triggered an interest to delve into the topic on my own, exploiting the solid structure of knowledge offered by the course.

Furthermore, some of the insights into the most recent technology and the strategy to get the most out of it was a game-changer for the project work: I was able to find out how to improve our business idea by optimizing the cost structure while reducing the amount of data to be treated.

Eventually, I met many other MIP students, especially those enrolled in the Full-Time MBA whom we had had few opportunities to meet in person due to the pandemic: I found among them the same target of builders of the future that I experience among my colleagues, nurturing my awareness of the potential of opportunities of the alumni network.

In the end, I think that the personal window is a hint of the mindset we have to maintain in our future, right after the graduation: we need to scan the opportunities out there and choose the ones that fit best to set the pace of our career and drive our projects.

 

About the author
 Fabrizio Liponi

My name is Fabrizio and I work as a tunnel engineer in the construction of Underground Line 4 of Milan. Born, raised, studied, living and working in Milan: I love my city and I’m proud to take part in building its future. Travel addicted, I love to meet people and different cultures.

 

 

Food Waste Hubs among the Earthshot Prize finalists

Posted on | by Mirja Calgaro | Leave a Comment on Food Waste Hubs among the Earthshot Prize finalists

The Milanese project against food waste is one of the 3 finalists of the prize promoting environmental protection measures, in the category “Build a Waste Free World”

 

On 17 September, Prince William announced that the City of Milan Food Waste Hubs have made it into the shortlist of 15 finalists of the inaugural year of the Earthshot Prize, the prestigious international award for the best environmental protection solutions.

In particular, Milan will be vying for the prize in the category “Build a Waste Free World” alongside another two projects: one for the conversion of waste into safe agricultural inputs (Kenya) and one involving a water treatment system that turns 98% of water waste into clean fresh water (Japan). Food Waste Hubs was selected from among 750 projects submitted worldwide.

Making it into the shortlist of Earthshot Prize finalists confirms the great teamwork demonstrated by the city of Milan. Through the work of the City Council and many local, private and third-sector companies, today Milan has 3 hubs in the districts of Isola (2019), Lambrate (2020) and Gallaratese (2021).

The project stems from a partnership, established in 2016, between the Milan City Council, the Politecnico di Milano, Assolombarda, Fondazione Cariplo and the QuBì Programme.

In particular, the Politecnico di Milano School of Management conducted a network feasibility study and monitored the hubs’ operation and the impact generated by the project, thus making it possible to build an extensible logistic model replicable in other areas of the city.

The project also involves major mass retailers, including Lidl Italia, Esselunga, Carrefour, NaturaSi, Erbert, Coop Lombardia, Il Gigante, Bennet and Penny Market. Moreover, in collaboration with Fondazione Cariplo and SogeMi, the Milan City Council has also launched the “Foody Zero Waste” initiative to replicate the hub model at Ortomercato, Milan’s wholesale fruit and vegetable market, and recover fresh food alongside Banco Alimenare della Lombardia, Recup, the Southern Milanese Red Cross, the University of Milan and many other supporting partners.

The winners will be announced in late October.

For more information:
Food Policy Press Release
Finalists announcement