Research

Politecnico di Milano School of Management aims to impact on society by creating and sharing knowledge at the intersection between engineering, management and economics.
Excellent research is instrumental to this mission , along with high-quality education and engagement with the community.
Today, the School is recognized as a national leader in the research field and aims at becoming one of the main European academic institution for the interdisciplinary research in Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering by:

  • Pursuing excellence in both academic and practice-oriented research;
  • Encouraging strong international collaborations;
  • Reinforcing and expanding School’s strong relationships with companies, public institutions, not-for-profit organisations and other community groups.

EXPERTISE

SoM research draws from three main expertise disciplinary domains:

  • Management, which is concerned with the study of management and innovation of companies, financial institutions, Public Administrations and non-profit organizations from a strategic and organizational point of view and with a particular emphasis on the interplay between strategy, management and the use of technology.
  • Applied Economics, which applies economic theory and models to issues in the industrial, international, financial, innovation and entrepreneurship domains. The subjects analysed can be individuals, companies, non-profit organisations, public administrations, industries and countries.
  • Industrial Engineering, which addresses the strategies, methodologies and techniques used in planning, designing, modelling, constructing and operating industrial plants, infrastructures and production systems concerned with goods and services, and in the maintenance, processing and disposal of these systems.

More granular expertise areas cover the following disciplines:

  • Accounting and Control
  • Data Science and quantitative methods
  • Economics & Policy
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Finance
  • Industrial economics
  • Industrial Systems Engineering
  • Innovation
  • International Business
  • Logistics
  • Marketing
  • Operations Management
  • Organization studies
  • Procurement
  • Project Management
  • Public Management
  • Strategy
  • Supply Chain Management

High-quality research is a priority for the School and it is carried out in compliance with our ethical rules of conduct.
Research plays a key role in:

  • generating new knowledge
  • enhancing the level of teaching
  • establishing effective relationships with the corporate world, policy-makers and society at large

High-quality research is intended as a is research which combines scientific rigour and practical relevance. While scientific rigour is based on the principle of peer review assessment, practical relevance is reflected in the impact of research on the School’s stakeholders, as the scientific and business community, students, the society and policy-makers.
The School’s approach to research is characterised by:

  • multi- disciplinarity – thanks to the multiple experitise domain and the belonging to and integration with other Politecnico Departments
  • multiple methodologies, like econometric analyses, data analytics methods, experimental methods, quantitative modelling, case studies and other qualitative methodologies, collaborative and action research
  • leveraging on networks: the School uses its extensive and growing network of collaborations with companies, agencies, public authorities and bodies, leading research institutions worldwide.

The School is mainly involved in two types of research:

  • Academic Research, whose aims is to generate original scientific knowledge, rigorous and relevant to the international academic community.
  • Practice-oriented research, which provides new knowledge and conceptual tools for the advancement of management and policy-making practices.

RESEARCH LINES

SoM Research strategy is defined around Research Lines, that are multi-disciplinary research activities that draw on the three main expertise domains – management, applied economics and industrial engineering – and particularly on the specific expertise areas.

Research lines integrate the competencies developed within the relevant expertise domains to address emerging, scientifically relevant challenges of great practical and societal impact.

OUTCOMES

The School has a great and growing research potential, as it is evident from the analysis of its research output.

Core Faculty

The Core Faculty is currently (May 2021) composed of 124 members. Almost all Core Faculty members are involved in either academic or practice-oriented research (most of them are involved in both). Moreover, in the School, there are 90 PhD students.

The performance of Academic Research
  • Between 2012 and 2017, the number of papers published on WOS or SCOPUS journals almost doubled, and their percentage over journal papers increased from 58% to 89%. This figure corresponds, in 2017, to almost 1.3 papers for each Core Faculty member.
  • Papers published on Scopus Q1 (best 25%) or WOS Q1 & Q2 (best 50%) journals grown almost 2.5 times, and their percentage over journal papers drastically increased from 30% to 59%. This figure corresponds, in 2017, to almost 0.9 papers for each Core Faculty member.
  • Considering SCOPUS journals only, citations increased by 59% from 2012 to 2016.

 

2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
Papers published on journals 133 134 146 129 157 165
Papers in Academic Conferences 147 145 112 74 120 64
Chapters in Books 19 16 18 12 22 28
Books 3 4 5 7 1 2
Papers published in WOS or SCOPUS journals 77 87 94 106 150 146
Papers published SCOPUS Q1 or WOS Q1 & Q2 journals 40 49 65 72 106 98
Citations in SCOPUS (journals only) 5733 6522 7313 8107 9120 n.a

 

The performance of Practice-Oriented Research

Over the period 2012 to 2017, the School further consolidated its national leadership position.
Core Faculty members have been very active in practice-oriented research.
The results in this domain are outstanding:

  • The number of practice-oriented conferences and seminars organised more than doubled between 2012 and 2017, up to 280.
  • The number of people attending the events organised by the School increased by more than 50%, up to 25.000.
  • The School now reached a community of more than 150,000 practitioners.

 

 

Learning by Doing

The amount of funding from private companies and public institutions has been increasing considerably over the years, from 9.0 million Euros in 2012 to 15.7 million Euros in 2017 (+75%). The 2017 figure corresponds to almost 140,000 Euros for each Core Faculty member.

Private companies have become a fundamental source of funding for the School’s research, with a remarkable improvement (+100%) from 2012 to 2017.

The amount of funding from public institutions is stable, with a large share (72% on average) received from international/foreign public institutions (mainly the European Commission).

 

2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
Funding from private companies (million €) 6.2 9.4 9.5 9.2 10.4 12.3
Funding from public institutions (million €) 2.8 3.9 2.9 4.0 2.8 3.4
- National 1.1 0.8 0.4 1.0 0.7 1.4
International 1.7 3.1 2.5 3.0 2.1 2.0