About us

The School is well-aware of the fundamental role that universities play in the education of young people and in the way they approach the labour market, and of the role of business schools in shaping the new generations who will be the managers of the future. The aim of Politecnico di Milano is to be an international university while remaining strongly rooted in Italian culture, and to promote a more attractive eco-system through:

• our training approach that gives all graduates the best opportunity when applying for a job;
• our research potential that helps companies to innovate and enhance their level of quality;
• our focus on entrepreneurship, where students, graduates and researchers are motivated to become entrepreneurs within new business ventures;
• our continuous collaboration with institutions and society to create a “culturally open”, creative, innovation oriented and responsible environment.

The School of Management has always endorsed these principles, which are set out in its mission, vision and values.

Our approach to sustainability is based on three elements, which are academic excellence, leading research and service to the community, and it is based on the values of integrity, respect and expertise.

Since 2013, the School of Management has taken some important steps forward:

• In 2013, after a thorough analysis and discussion within the Executive Board, the School decided to integrate the PoliMI Code of Ethics within its “Code and rules of conduct for integrity in research and good scientific practice”, which focuses on scientific research.
• In 2014, the School decided to join the PRME (Principles for Responsible Management Education) project. As a consequence, we activated all the processes needed to achieve PRME goals (in terms of continuous improvement in research and teaching)
• In 2015, we established the Gianluca Spina Association, inspired by the friends and colleagues of Gianluca, former MIP President, who died prematurely on the 21st February, 2015. The goal of the Association is to raise funds (from companies, public and private institutions and private individuals) to support initiatives that promote research and education on management, particularly in the areas that Gianluca was most passionate about;
• Lastly, in 2015 we launched the “Sustainable Project”, where our aim is to organise and build a consistent and integrated strategy for all initiatives dealing with social responsibility, sustainability and ethical issues.

The mission of the School of Management is to contribute to the collective good through a critical understanding of the opportunities offered by innovation.
This mission is accomplished by creating and sharing knowledge through high-quality education, high-quality research and engagement with the community.

High‐quality education

The School aims to increase human capital by educating responsible future leaders, capable of critical thinking and able to assume key managerial and entrepreneurial roles in the global landscape within both public and private sectors. As such, the School offers a complete portfolio of programs, ranging from undergraduate to post‐ experience education, in line with its social role.

High‐quality research

The School aims to contribute to the production and dissemination of original and relevant knowledge at the intersection between engineering, management and economics, through a holistic approach that encourages diversity and interdisciplinarity, and with a strong foothold on understanding technology by virtue of belonging to one of the most prominent technical universities in the world.

Engagement with the community

The School aims to play a pivotal role in creating a more meaningful, sustainable and fair society, by influencing business practice and developing appropriate policy recommendations.

We share with our University the core values of Integrity, Respect and Expertise.

• Integrity: Faculty members, staff, students and our partners act in the full respect of the law, rules and practices. Illegal and unethical behaviour must be rejected under all circumstances.
• Respect: We expect Faculty members, staff, students and our partners to show full respect for other people’s needs, the environment and society.
  Respect is a prerequisite for valuing and supporting an international environment in which diversities of gender, culture, beliefs, personalities, political ideas and backgrounds positively influence one another.
• Expertise: Research and education must both relate strongly to the economy and the corporate world in order to support an effective transfer of knowledge to the community.

In addition, our activity is inspired by a problem solving mind-set, a passion for technology and innovation and the predilection for engaging and collaborative approaches.

• Problem-solving mind-set: We adopt a problem-solving perspective typical of engineering to conduct creative and innovative research and to address the complex management, technological and social challenges of the world today.
  While we draw from a wide range of backgrounds and practice in different scholarly fields, engineering has a special role in our research and is a distinctive feature of our School, especially when compared to other schools of management and engineering.
• Passion for technology, innovation and change: We consider technology, innovation and change as key components for creating value, in both public and private sectors.
• Engaging and collaborative approach: We are committed towards helping to improve the quality of society, particularly with respect to sustainability and innovation. We seek corporate connections and institutional partnerships, as they are the means by which we can transfer knowledge effectively to the communities of practitioners, policy-makers and society at large.

We envision a world where responsible leaders are driven by the search for collective benefit empowered by technological enlightenment.

Collective Benefit

A world where leaders are driven by the search for collective benefit, and where collective interest is added to personal interest. In this world, creating meaningful impact on society is the end purpose or aspiration, and profit and social impact are synergic goals and not contrasting elements. We picture a world in which leaders have the drive and cultural instruments to reflect critically on what collective benefit they wish to achieve and how their actions impact on this collective benefit.

Technological Enlightenment

A world where innovation is a powerful means to achieve the collective benefit. In this world, innovation is not a matter of quantity or an objective per se, but of quality and meaningfulness, and requires a socio‐technical approach, to encompass both technology and human relationships. Accordingly, technology needs to be understood critically and at its very core, to drive its potential towards the creation of meaningful impact on society.

The strategy of the School of Management calls for a common effort, where all stakeholders collaborate in creating an opportunity. The School can only grow together with its stakeholders, taking on a key role in society and offering its specialised contribution to the creation of a sustainable, inclusive world.

We grow together

with students and researchers: we strive for their personal and professional growth, supporting them in the achievement of great goals and providing the world with responsible future leaders.

with the University: we place our skills at the service of the Politecnico di Milano, integrating different fields of research in order to broaden the impact of our shared results;

with the business environment: we maintain a constant dialogue in order for our applied research to have significant impact on business innovation; we motivate majors and researchers to set up new entrepreneurial initiatives;

with Institutions: we have an ongoing collaboration to create a “culturally open”, creative, innovation-oriented and responsible environment;

with society: we seek the active involvement of the community and work to serve it more effectively, promoting innovation that contributes to its wellbeing;

with science and academia: we are institutionally part of the national and international scientific and University system and move forward with it.

Research Impact Assessment

Goals are mere intents without accountability. This is why, moving from the aim of fostering our impact on society, we have introduced a thorough Research Impact Assessment model to assess the ability of our research to benefit our main stakeholders: Institutions, Enterprises, Students & Faculty, Citizens and the Academic Community.

Our research is classified according to the level of impact it has reached: dissemination by researchers, adoption by practitioners, benefits for the community. This tool represents our compass and our scale, as it inspires our research efforts and it verifies the extent to which their objectives are accomplished.

THE P.L.A.N.: PARTNERING, LEADING, ACTING, NURTURING

We have identified four guidelines for our actions, consistently with the plan’s goals.

Partnering

Having a key role in interdisciplinary projects

Politecnico di Milano’s vision of technology, interacting with social sciences and humanities to drive responsible development, compels us to integrate our research with the diverse expertise
domains of our University. We intend to leverage our strengths, such as strong corporate relations and the ability to attract private funds, to improve the quality of interdisciplinary research and thus enhance the impact of our collective results.

Leading

Being champions of teaching innovation

Effectiveness in teaching has always been at the centre of our mission: we feel the responsibility to support talents in the accomplishment of outstanding objectives. To Improve the quality of the learning process we must exploit the opportunities offered by digitalization, foster interdisciplinarity and increase the customisation of training programmes. Our knowledge of advanced digital learning platforms enables us to give a fundamental contribution also to the current COVID-19 emergency.

Acting

Working interdisciplinary to make world class research

Current world challenges require a holistic approach, and new visions are possible only through interactions and collective action. At the leading-edge of scientific and public debate, our challenge is to identify and develop interdisciplinary research themes involving a sizable share of our Faculty to direct a collective action to great societal and research challenges, including those related to sustainability, social impact and the current COVID-19 emergency.

Nurturing

Offering our people the experiences they need to grow

No change is possible without focusing on the individual first. Students, Faculty, Researchers and Staff: to reach our goals we rely on the commitment of our community at large, for whom we wish to create the opportunities and the environment suitable to develop their full potential. We focus on supporting young researchers in their professional growth and on fostering exchanges with international academics.

 

To know more about the actions through which we are implementing the P.L.A.N., read the complete Strategic Plan 2020-2022:

Based on the need to integrate knowledge and experience available on the market, the School has entrusted its research and training programme to a faculty of full, associate and assistant professors at Politecnico di Milano, visiting professors from other universities, professionals from leading consultancy firms and managers from the industrial world.

The School of Management’s faculty is a key resource, giving the School a competitive edge over other business schools both in Italy and abroad. MIP has been engaging an increasing number of foreign faculty members since 2002, when it introduced its first international MBA course.

The School of Management has a Core Faculty of more than 119 professors and attracts visiting professors from leading international universities. Their collaboration consists not only in teaching and lecturing, but also in designing and organising joint training programmes.

In the last years, the School set up an Advisory Board, composed of 7 members from 9 different countries.

This Board is effectively a laboratory of ideas to identify new trends and challenges and encourage constructive dialogue, capitalising on the managerial experience of its members who hold or have held positions of responsibility in large companies or academic institutions from across the world.

Meetings are held annually to promote valuable and continuous exchange of knowledge, experience and knowhow, allowing the school to anticipate changes in the global competitive environment and address companies’ demand for increasingly multi-disciplinary skills.