Department of excellence 2018-2022
Aims of the project:
Thanks to the project Departments of Excellence, DiSA aims to improve the teaching quality of the programme offer at the national and internationa level, the impact both of the research activities and of its activities related to the civil society.
The project foresees three lines of activities:
- The first one intends to strengthen all the activities which have been carried on till now, it will be possible through the internationalization of the research fields, the further development of the Ph.D. programme and the increasing of the international attractiveness for the teaching programmes offer and for the support programmes to entrepreneurship.
- The second one refers to the growth through the recruitment of new faculty staff with an international experience, through the increasing capacity in attracting international research fund opportunities and through the development of new research areas in the three Departments Campuses (Industry 4.0 e Next Production Revolution in Bologna, Social Innovation and Public Management in Forlì, Service and Tourism in Rimini).
- The third one aims at testing new opportunities for development through research projects and interdisciplinary curricula, the active participation to the international job market for the recruitment of faculty staff, research fellows and Ph.D. students. The purpose is to increase the social and economic impact at the international and local level for the researches carried on by the Department; furthermore the establishment of thematic Observatories is foreseeen in the three Campuses.
The Department is active in the engagement of companies and institutions in the frame the different activities related to the project Department of Excellence.
Actions
Coherently with the purpose of “strengthening”, “growing” and “testing”, the three project action lines follow the three fields of the university activity: research, teaching and third mission.
Research Activities
In the research field, to strengthen the international and interdisciplinary project planning and the internationalization process the designed actions refer to:
- support for the establishment of networks at the international and interdisciplinary level for project proposals elaboration on competitive calls;
- implementation of visiting IN programmes for international profiles with a high research qualification/expertise. This action has direct effect on the internationalisation of the teaching program offer as well;
- implementation of visiting OUT programmes to support the career development and the networking within an international community;
- membership to the Scancor Consortum (Scandinavian Consortium for Organizational Research) to further enhance the networking and visiting periods between faculty, research fellow and PhD students from the Department and from Harvard and Stanford Universities;
- publication of Calls for Interest on a regular basis for the recruitment on international staff and the participation to the most relevant thematic conferences;
- support for the Open Access and Open Data requirments consistently with the University and the European Union policies;
- enhancement of the Ph.D. programme among candidates coming from research experiences different from the research field of the Department;
- organisation of the yearly Research Day of the Department addressed to its members and to the main related stakeholders.
In order to enhance an improvement of the individual performance for the publications and the drive of international competitive funds, the following actions are planned:
- devoted budget for proofreading and for submission costs to increase the number of international high profile publications;
- professional training activities for faculty staff on the use of the new technologies to apply for teaching and research programmes;
- promotion and organisation of interdisciplinary conferences and seminars.
Teaching Activities
The planned actions are the following:
- to increase the tutorial services/tutoring/tutorship for the international degree programmes;
- to rise in the number of the jointly teaching classes by Italian and foreign professors;
- to increase in the interdisciplinary specific collaborations;
- to develop joint curricula and international double degrees in the three cycles programmes;
- to integrate interdisciplinary teaching activities in the frame of the current teaching programmes offer.
Other initiatives refer to:
- two additional Ph.D. grants related to the topics of Social Innovation and Public Management and of Service and Tourism respectively in the Campuses of Forlì and Rimini;
- enhancement of activities focused on the promotion abroad of the international degree programmes and the Ph.D. programme to increase the number of enrolled foreign students.
In terms of teaching opportunities and tools the following initiatives have been planned:
- creation of a Knowledge Repository for teaching materials as an Open Platform according to the best international experiences;
- update of the teaching competences of the faculty staff also in the perspective of a more effective use of the new technologies;
- organisation of induction programmes to the teaching activties addressed to the new recruited staff;
- implementation of ad-hoc initiatives in the frame of the University programme Distance Learning, as the project in the Food area financed by the Erasmus Plus programme;
- specific training initiatives for adjunct professors, who play a fundamental role in the teaching delivery of the Department.
Third Mission
In order to enhance the research activities implemented through external contracts and the collaboration with territorial stakeholders on the continuing education and on the public engagement, the following actions are foreseen:
- strengthen the support to the University programmes addressed to entrepreneurship;
- strengthen the collaboration with the Bologna Business School for the development and the delivery of Executive and Post-graduate programmes and for the implementation of applied research activities;
- enhance several collaborations directly addressed to the macro-sector thematic development of the three Campuses.
- create thematic Observatories in collaboration with other Departments, Institutions and local authorities;
- activate an experimental service called DiSA Knowledge/DiSA Media Service for the dissemination of the results from research activities through a permanent and multichannel mode;
- open and promote the Knowledge Repository towards companies and institutions.
Time
Most of the planned activities will take place yearly; in the first two years, the starting phase has been launched in the three Campuses of the Department. Those initiatives continue in the following years:
- recruitment of faculty staff, technical- administrative staff, senior assistant professor (fixed-term) and research fellows; furthermore this action will receive an international relevance through the publication of calls for interest;
- launch of additional 6 grants for Ph.D. students besides the already granted ones;
- launch of the training teaching programme and the professional and vocational training for faculty staff;
- launch of programmes to facilitate interdisciplinary and international teaching programmes with high qualification and research activities;
- start of the institutional path to develop joint curricula and international double degrees in the three cycles programmes;
- membership to the Scancor Consortium;
- launch of the DISA Fellowship programme for Visiting Researchers IN for teaching and research activities;
- start of the DISA Visiting Out programme;
- start of the DISA Entrepreneurs and Manager in Residence programmes;
- organisation of the Research Day of the Department;
- launch of the organisation of interdisciplinary and international conferences and seminars;
- launch of the programme to support the presentation of project proposals on competitive calls;
- creation of thematic Observatories.