Just getting a degree does not cut it anymore: lifelong learning is already the norm for most professionals. “The Politecnico has been offering lifelong learning and postgraduate programmes for some time now, especially through its consortia and departments which offer professional training courses, masters and business training,” explained professor Federico Caniato, the Rector's Delegate for lifelong learning. “However, in recent years, the need for a new type of education has emerged; one that is online, self-led but reliable, available in odd moments of spare time with a personalised approach, which also links to the topic of free learning.
The university’s response is Polimi Open Knowledge, a platform which gathers modular video lessons which are created by professors at the Politecnico on an ad hoc basis and complemented with study materials and assessment tests. This type of training is known as MOOC, massive open online courses, and is becoming increasingly popular across the world. The Poli's platform contains dozens of MOOCs dedicated to professionals; particularly for alumni that are keen to explore or brush up on wide-ranging subjects like soft skills, artificial intelligence, sustainable technologies, but also basic knowledge of topics such as professional project management. “The courses can be completed online independently and free of charge, with a view to democratising knowledge.”
The Poli is also launching a new postgraduate teaching project in partnership with 4 other top technical universities: ETH, Aachen, Delft and Chalmers. “There has been an alliance with these European partners for many years called IDEA League, which is involved in many research, teaching and social responsibility initiatives. The Lifelong Learning project is also going in this direction. Alumni will be able to access the online training courses which will be structured with the support of a supervisor and technical content provided by each of the 5 universities.” The programme lasts approximately one year and costs €5,000. It will end with a week in person (the first edition will be held between Zurich and Milan) alongside professionals from various European countries who will meet the professors and develop a capstone project to conclude the course.
Long story short: if you thought you had closed your books for good, it is time to think again.
The rate of employment of Politecnico di Milano graduates keeps growing. The employment rate of Italian Master's degree graduates rose by 2 percentage points, with 98%already in employment one year after graduation Employment is almost fully guaranteed for engineers (up from 98% to 99%), as well as architects and designers (respectively up from 93% to 97% and from 88% to 94%) , and employment rates five years after graduation were confirmed at 99%..
These are the data revealed by the employment survey published by the Politecnico di Milano, carried out with a dual time scale of one year and five years after graduation. Almost all graduates (91%) have a job that is consistent with their degree , and a third of those interviewed had already found the job before graduation, thanks to careful observation of external dynamics and training that keeps pace with market demands.
Permanent employment contracts are also on the rise, with 60% of graduates in permanent employment one year after graduation and 90% after five years.
After five years, 90% are employed in the private sector and 54% work for an SME, although contracts with large multinationals are on the rise; the main market is still Italy (83%).
Although salaries in Italy remain largely unchanged, Master's degree graduates from the Politecnico di Milano see salary increases five years after graduation to an average of €2,187, around €700 net more per month than the salary of a newly graduated employee; this growth goes hand in hand with a professional career and the assumption of positions of responsibility.
There was also a leap forward in the world of work (+7%) for foreign Master's degree graduates trained at the Politecnico, whose employment rate rose from 82% to 89% one year after graduation, rising to 95% after five years. They report being satisfied with the university and with the qualification because it is consistent with the work they do, but fewer than 50% remain in Italy to work.
Employment among Bachelor’s degree graduatesis also on the rise (+5%), with 92% in work one year after graduation, despite a slight drop in terms of remuneration, thus indicating that the investment in training tends to pay off.
“Record employment for our graduates. This is the benefit of training that keeps pace with the expectations of the private sector, where most of our new graduates find work, as well as the public sector, where the greatest efforts will be concentrated in the coming years for the implementation of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan," commented Ferruccio Resta, Rector of the Politecnico di Milano.- "The data collected also reconfirm, going against the national trend, one of the characteristics of the Politecnico di Milano: the consistency between the qualification obtained by our graduates and the job they do Last but not least is the data concerning foreign students. Trained at our university, only half of them work in Italy. This is a trend that needs to be reversed, in order to increase the innovation potential of our territories and the definition of long-term active policies."
The Politecnico di Milano has developed an innovative technological device, for industrial use, aimed at the study of new drugs for the treatment of brain disorders such as Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease. This is the main result of the European project DIANA (Organ-on-a-chip Drug screenIng device to tArget braiN diseAse), funded in 2019 by the Proof-of Concept call of theERC (European Research Council).
DIANA brought together universities and companies in a consortium between the Politecnico di Milano and the innovative SME Neuro-Zone srl, specialized in discovery activities to support the development of drugs in the field of neurological and neurodegenerative diseases. The project was enhanced by the involvement of Diego Albani, researcher in neuroscience at the Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche Mario Negri IRCCS in Milan, an expert in innovative pharmacological approaches for neurodegenerative diseases.
The Chip4DBrain platform developed by DIANA is based on a state-of-the-art technology known as" organ-on-a-chip "that allows you to reproduce complex organ functions on systems the size of a microscope slide.
explains Carmen Giordano, Professor of Bioengineering at the Politecnico di Milano..
This is a further step towards the development of evolved in vitro models, which can reproduce some of the key characteristics of biological systems, such as the three-dimensionality or the simultaneous presence of different types of cells, just as it is in our brain, to evaluate the potential of a new drug to cross the blood brain barrier and effectively target the brain.
This innovative miniaturized platform is able to integrate in a single in vitro system the blood-brain barrier, which protects our brain from the aggression of molecules and external agents, and a model of brain tissue.
Chip4D Brain has also allowed the implementation of cellular models of the blood brain and brain barrier, already in use at Neuro-Zone, making them closer to the biological profile of a patient thanks to the use of commercial human stem cells.
Giordano adds:
In an international scenario - concludes Carmen Giordano - where the restrictions or ethical assessments towards the use of animal models also in the field of neuroscience are very complex, predictive and advanced in vitro models are increasingly urgent.
The mission that DIANA has faced is highly topical: in the coming decades, brain diseases such as Alzheimer's disease or Parkinson's disease will have a significant increase, but unfortunately the development of effective drugs requires a ten-year process, investments of billions of euros to facing a failure rate, which for Alzheimer's disease alone is close to 95%.
The "STEM 4 Women @Gruppo 24 ORE" Scholarship has been awarded by Gruppo 24 ORE to Valeria Pantè, a student on the Laurea Magistrale (equivalent to Master of Science) programme in Engineering of Computing Systems at the Politecnico di Milano.
The scholarship is aimed at young women on engineering courses at the Politecnico di Milano with the idea of supporting women on STEM degree programmes, subjects which are still studied by fewer female students in Italy. Suffice to say that, although more than half of graduates from Italian universities are women (58.7% of the total in 2020), only 16 out of every 100 have a STEM qualification, compared to 35 men (Istat, 2021).
"I am extremely grateful to Gruppo 24 ORE and the Politecnico di Milano for this wonderful initiative which encourages inclusion in STEM and underlines its importance. In this field of study, we are still struggling to achieve gender equality in terms of the number of students, despite there being no barrier to overcoming this problem: men and women have the same skills and capabilities. Inclusivity and diversity are key elements for having different points of view and finding more effective solutions,” stated Valeria Pantè, the winner of the award.
Credits: Polimi
This scholarship is part of the initiatives - also in synergy with companies and Alumni - of the Politecnico that aim to encourage the presence of women in engineering courses where women are below 35%:
"The partnership with Sole 24 Ore is part of a journey that the Politecnico di Milano has clearly outlined among its strategic policies, that of increasing female participation on study programmes where less than 35% are women,” said Rector Ferruccio Resta, “It is fundamental that the issue of gender is shared by companies as something of a passing of the baton between the educational side and professional development. The two must go hand in hand. Recognising and promoting talent is the first step in this direction".
You too can support the Girls @ Polimi scholarships with a donation starting from 10 euros. Click here .
The Parco Archeologico dell’Appia Antica (Appia Antica Archaeological Park) was established in 2016 and represents the largest protected urban area in Europe, with 4,500 hectares of landscape and a series of archaeological areas, along more than 16km of the Via Appia Antica “Regina Viarum” (Queen of the Roads).
From now on, the park will no longer fear the passing of time: because of the work carried out by the Politecnico di Milano, it has been possible to deliver a comprehensive, organic and systematic surveying and digitalisation project in the area for the purpose of creating a modern geographical atlas.
The aim is to create a ‘living 4D digital twin’ which can be used by experts, curators and other individuals responsible for restoring and preserving the largest protected urban area in Europe, to be developed and monitored over time.
“A living digital twin,” says the coordinator Raffaella Brumana from the GIcarus ABCLab at the Politecnico di Milano, “which spans the past and future in infinite dimensions, made up of information models to support conservation projects and monitoring, seismic vulnerability plans, and is connectable to wireless IoT sensors. It is implementable, updatable and searchable, allows for synchronic and diachronic correlations and adds knowledge as it grows in size. It can be re-used for sharing content and interactive, immersive and remote use.”
4D DIGITAL GEOGRAPHIC ATLAS: HOW DOES IT WORK?
To date, the atlas contains over 200,000 images and 20 terabytes of data and modelsmodels from which it is possible to extract information relating to the three-dimensional models of the park's geographical space.
The high-precision survey was conducted using terrestrial laser scanners (TLS) and portable scanners (MMS - Mobile Mapping Systems), terrestrial and aerial photogrammetry, drones, spherical cameras and multispectral sensors and made it possible to obtain an HBIM (Heritage Building Information Modelling) model in four dimensions (space and time) which, once associated with historical information, material and sensors for monitoring instability and deterioration, makes it possible to compare the construction techniques employed over the centuries.
The charter for the National Centre for Sustainable Mobility: has been signed: 25 universities, with their research centres, and 24 large companies operating in mobility and infrastructure sectors joined forces with the aim of supporting the green and digital transition in a sustainable perspective, ensuring industrial transition and helping local institutions to implement modern, sustainable and inclusive solutions.
It is an ambitious project: it will involve 696 researchers from the partner institutions, together with 574 new recruits, and is intended to be a real tool of growth and development in a key sector such as mobility, which is estimated to reach a total national value of 220 billion euro in 2030, employing 12% of the workforce; the investment for the first 3 years (2023-2025) amounts to €394 million.
The activities of the National Centre for Sustainable Mobility will focus on five technological areas of greater interest: air mobility; sustainable road vehicles; waterborne transport; rail transport; light vehicles and active mobility, aiming to make the mobility system 'greener' as a whole and more 'digital' in its management.
According to the “Hub&Spoke” model, there will be a central “hub” in Milan and 14 “spoke” research facilities distributed throughout the country, to ensure the territorial rebalancing that is one of the priorities of the NRPP.
The National Mobility Centre responds to one of the key missions of the NRPP: to promote extended collaboration between the worlds of research and industry intended as part of a supply chain. Its strengths will be projects of high technological maturity with the precise intention of providing a concrete response to the country's needs in a long-term perspective that goes beyond the 2026 deadline. This is our commitment. This is the opportunity to implement structural reforms. A game that we are willing to play to the end
commented Ferruccio Resta, Rector of the Politecnico di Milano, the proposing institution of the Centre for Sustainable Mobility.
The National Centre for Sustainable Mobility is the first to start among the five National Centres planned in the NRPP - National Recovery and Resilience Plan: they are widespread networks of universities, public research bodies and other public and private parties engaged in research activities that are recognised as being highly qualified in the development of infrastructure, projects and solutions that can be of immediate use for the entire social context.
The areas in which the Research Centres will operate are in line with the priorities of the EU Research Agenda and the contents of the Italian National Research Program (NRP) 2021-27: High-performance simulations, calculations and data analysis; Agricultural Technologies (Agritech); Development of medicines with RNA technology and gene therapy; Sustainable mobility; Biodiversity.
Parties involved in the National Centre for Sustainable Mobility:
Organising research bodies
Politecnico di Milano, Cnr, Politecnico di Torino, Politecnico di Bari, Università di Bergamo, Università di Parma, Università di Torino, Università di Palermo, Università di Bologna, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Università di Cagliari, Università di Roma La Sapienza, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Università di Salerno, Università Napoli Parthenope, Università del Salento, Università di Padova, Università di Pisa
Supporting research bodies
Università Bicocca, Università di Brescia, Università di Cassino e del Lazio Meridionale, Università di Firenze, Università di Genova, Università di Reggio Calabria, Università Politecnica delle Marche
Development - sustainable - responsiblethese are the three key concepts that theADI Design Index indicates as fundamental for contemporary design and which have guided the selection of the winners in the 27th edition of the Compasso d'Oro, announced on 20 June 2022.
Among these are also Alumni and Alumnae who have distinguished themselves for their projects and careers, and who have elevated the name of Made in Italy Design in our country and the world.
"The profound transformations that design is called upon to interpret, from the environmental crisis to economic and social inequalities, push the culture of design to engage in a multiplicity of directions, from the conscious use of the resources available to the planet to the creation of objects capable of including and enhancing the various components of civil society."
comments the award jury.
Let's see together who are the winning polytechnics this year.
Antonio Citterio - Compasso d’oro for Lifetime Achievement
Citterio, Architecture Alumnus and founder of the Citterio-Viel studio, receives the award for "An exemplary path for consistency and quality, a path that has contributed to evolving the Italian professional offer towards an increasingly advanced methodological model. During his career Antonio Citterio has materialized true icons of the Italian lifestyle in the world ”.
Credits: vitra.com
Giulio Cappellini - Compasso d’oro for Lifetime Achievement
According to the reasoning of the jury, “The path of Giulio Cappellini - Architecture Alumnus - is a continuous reading and rereading of the phenomena of design; capable of projecting his actions into the contemporary world through his own personal sensitivity, as well as through the relationship with the many young talents he supports".
An award that pays homage to the profound curiosity, foresight and audacity of the Alumnus, known internationally as one of the greatest trendsetters and talent scouts in the sector.
Credits: https://slidedesign.it/
Cini Boeri - Compasso d'Oro for Product Career
The Alumna receives the award for the Ghost armchair designed together with Tomu Katayanagi, a design object on the market with a career of over ten years.
According to the jury, Ghost is a “perfect form of technological experimentation and formal research, which demonstrates the desire to dematerialize the perception of function in favour of the user, who thus becomes the absolute protagonist of the space”.
Credits: fiamitalia.it
Scale for blood donation called “Milano” | Cefriel
The new "Milano" blood donation scale is a device created from the collaboration between Delcon, an Italian company specializing in the design and production of medical devices and software for the blood supply chain, Cefriel, a centre of excellence for digital innovation created at the Politecnico di Milano, and the New York Blood Center.
"The scale awarded with the Compasso d'Oro is confirmation that making value product innovation is now possible by combining design and digital technology" - says Alfonso Fuggetta, Cefriel CEO, Alumnus and professor at the Politecnico di Milano -. In designing Milano, we followed a design thinking e agileapproach, which started with the analysis of user needs to arrive at the current solution. Following the principles of design thinking, the real needs and requirements of the end customer have been identified”.
Cefriel is a digital innovation centre that creates digital products, services and processes, participates in national and international research programmes, and develops digital skills and culture. It is a multidisciplinary team of over 130 people with a mix of technical, business and design skills. Founded in 1988 by the Politecnico di Milano, today it also includes the University of Milan, the University of Milan-Bicocca, the University of Insubria, the Lombardy Region and multinational companies among its members.
According to the reasoning by the jury of the ADI Design Index:
Design and technology redefine the management and control of blood donations: an incentive to increase the turnout of those who donate.
Goliath CNC | Springa
Goliath CNC, the numerically controlled machine tool for cutting and engraving, anywhere and without limits, was created by the Italian startup and spinoff of the Politecnico di Milano Springa, founded in 2016 from an idea of the three Alumni Davide Cevoli, Lorenzo Frangi and Alessandro Trifoni.
The innovation of Goliath consists in portability, which allows the machine tool to be positioned directly on the workpiece, on which it performs the machining by moving autonomously.
Credits: Goliath
RH120 | Ricehouse
Ricehouse is a company focused on the conversion of rice production waste into building and construction materials. Co-founded by Alumna Tiziana Monterisi, the company uses all natural materials that usually end up as waste for the creation of building infrastructures. Winning the Compasso d'Oro is RH120, a natural mixture of lime plaster and rice husk, specially designed to be smoothed and treated in order to highlight the aesthetic effect of the product.
“It is a material, mirroring our times, a fine finish that restores beauty in perfect balance between nature and technology. RH120 is a beautiful, elegant, technological and sustainable interior finish." comments the Alumna.
Credits: www.innovazionesociale.org
LAMBROgio, LAMBROgino | Makio Hasuike & Co
Alumni Naomi Hasuike, Luca Catrame and Andrea Sechi are part of the Makio Hasuike & Co team that created LAMBROgio, LAMBROgino, "a brilliant redefinition of traditional light vehicles for a new urban electric mobility for transporting people and delivering goods".
Designed to accommodate guests and move goods in a versatile and sustainable way thanks to a pedal assist system and a robust and functional structure with unmistakable lines, LAMBRO can move easily both in urban spaces and in private contexts such as resorts and prestigious campsites, marinas, exhibition centres and more.
Credits: Andrea Sechi
E-Worker | Merlo
The Alumnus Felice Contessini is part of the work team that designed E-Worker. E-Worker is the 100% electric reinterpretation of the classic forklift intended for agricultural and industrial environments, which allows a work area greater than the usual one.
Credits: Merlo Group
Designing in dark times | Virginia Tassinari (Editor) – Politecnico di Milano, Eduardo Staszowski (Editor), Clive Dilnot (Editor), Andrew LeClair (Graphic Design Director), Laura Wing (Managing Editor), Lesley Onstott, Lucas Teixeira Vaqueiro (Social Media Designers)
Eduardo Staszowski is one of the editors of “Designing in Dark Times”, “a book and a new series that provoke a reflection on the purposes and the responsibilities of design today”
The Politecnico di Milano has signed a partnership with the fashion house CHANEL
The prestigious French fashion house’s objective is to leverage our University’s expertise in order to develop new models that take account of the rapid and profound changes to manufacturing activities in the luxury sector, and to support and accelerate innovation, research and the development of more sustainable materials and production processes in the core sectors of its business.
This applied research project, conducted in close collaboration with our own researchers, will help to enrich the University’s academic corpus. At the same time, CHANEL will commence recruitment initiatives, talent assessment and continuous training for its own collaborators.
This announcement was made in the wake of the CHANEL 2021/22 Métiers d'art show, which will take place on Tuesday June 7th 2022 in Florence. First unveiled in Paris in December 2021, the collection will be presented once again to an audience of journalists, clients and celebrities close to the House, as well as approximately 220 students from Politecnico and other Italian schools specialising in fashion and design.
CHANEL says that it is proud to be linked to the Politecnico di Milano, in line with other partnerships initiated by the fashion house, focussing on know-how and sustainability.
Transforming the results of scientific research into a start-up is perhaps the most ambitious and stimulating way to show that your idea has the ability to materially solve a problem. This is well-known among the 21 teams which, on Tuesday 14 June, enlivened the morning session at the MADE Competence Centre with the “Demo Day” for the 2021 edition of Switch2Product. Thanks to the work carried out during the 4 months of acceleration coordinated by PoliHub, the start-ups that won last year’s edition of Switch2Product have shown some of the leading venture capital funds and the initiative’s partner companies how they intend to bring their technological and scientific innovations to the market.
The 14th edition of Switch2Product – Innovation Challengewas also presented on the same day. The application deadline for this initiative is 15 July.
I 21 Team vincitori dell’edizione 2021 – Credits: s2p
WHAT IS SWITCH2PRODUCT?
S2P is the Innovation Programme organised by PoliHub, the Politecnico’s Technology Transfer Office and the Officine Innovazione of Deloitte, conceived to support the creation of innovative start-ups by enhancing research activities and promoting entrepreneurialism.
To gather ideas from as many people as possible, the initiative is targeted at a broad spectrum of people: students, researchers, PhD students, lecturers and alumni of the Politecnico di Milano, POLIMI Graduate School of Management, Poli.design, as well as alumni or students enrolled at other affiliated universities and/or research organisations.
Credits: s2p
Those who are selected will have experts at their side to guide them along a pathway of entrepreneurial empowerment. The teams will also have access to grants and tailored acceleration courses, but above all, at the end of the course they will be able to enter into contact with investors and business partners who will allow them to create a PoC and obtain investment aimed at transforming the idea into a start-up.
There are four application categories: Health&Med Tech, Climate Tech & Circular Economy, Industries Transformation, New ways of working and living.
“The idea on its own is not enough. Even if it is good, it needs materiality. It must be supported, targeted and enhanced. For around fourteen years, Switch2Product has been a reference point within the ecosystem of the Politecnico and businesses; it is a mark of quality for investors; it is terrain for discussion among young entrepreneurs and expert businesspeople”, commented Donatella Sciuto, Executive Vice Rector of the Politecnico di Milano. “Over the last three years the number S2P applications has risen to more than six hundred; early stage pre-seed and seed investment has increased to almost seven million euros; the number of companies arriving on the market has multiplied (36 companies established). It is in this context of strong positive signals such as those arriving from this competition that the Politecnico is aiming to regenerate gas holders in the Bovisa area, in an attempt to create an ad hoc space for start-ups, placed at the centre of a veritable district of innovation.”
Donatella Sciuto, Prorettrice Vicaria del Politecnico di Milano | Credits: s2p
“S2P is confirmed as a programme par excellence”, concluded Andrea Sianesi, PoliHub President. ““In recent years, PoliHub has given life to a machine capable of creating deep tech start-ups, thanks to courses and methodologies developed ad hoc and the support of an impressive community of mentors, leveraging on its solid relationships with investors and business partners. An increasingly extensive network of stakeholders interested in the value of innovation is the driving force behind Switch2Product, the most important challenge in Italy, fostering projects that can be transformed into businesses which enrich the country’s entrepreneurial fabric and contribute to building its future every year”..
Where do the 5 per mille donations that alumni have given to the Politecnico over recent years end up? Click here to donate
We have prepared a brief collection to answer this question – a compendium of the high social impact research projects that the University has fostered thanks to your 5 per mille donations.
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