Posts by Michele Covolan

The new edition of the project “Innovation for change” took place at CERN of Geneva on February 1st. It has been promoted by the Scuola di alta formazione e management of Turin (SAFM – School of high education and management), by Politecnico di Torino and by Ideasquare, a specialised centre that hosts innovation-related events at CERN (Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire).

50 young students at MBA and SAFM and graduate students of Politecnico take part in this project, that is an education course in the scientific/engineering field. In the next months they’re going to work in Geneva and in Turin; they’re divided into different groups, but they’re brought together by the same objective: to use the most advanced technologies in order to help face societal challenges like the question about food and health.

Thanks to the work of the next months we will get 8 new ideas of business; each one of them will be competitive on the market, since they offer innovative products and services invented just to face the societal challenges in the context of the industrial and international needs. The students will be supported by those ones who studied at SAFM and who are entrepreneurs now, or work in big companies or as researchers at CERN or at Politecnico, looking for advanced tools and technological solutions which are ready to be used and creating prototypes ready to be developed on the market.

This project will be also supported by institutions and agencies that showed the students which are the challenges they have to focus on in order to find feasible solutions: the Italian Ministry of Economic Development, the UN development organization, the AIUC (Onlus organization), Casillo Group, ENEL, ENI and Humanitas.

At the end of this project (that will be in June) the students have the opportunity to show the results of their work to companies and investors during a public meeting in Turin, in which the heads of the supporting institutes will take part, too.

 

The number of Turinese students who want to study all around Europe is higher and higher: there has been a record in the numbers of appliances for the Erasmus project. Barcelona and Berlin are the most attracting destinations; Spain is the most attractive country, but also northern countries and U.K. are very often students destinations, even if with these countries it has been more difficult to establish exchange pacts since before the Brexit.

At Politecnico the Erasmus applications have reached the upper limit of 1800 as usual, while the number applications for the projects outside E.U. has redoubled and amounted to 500-600, also thanks to focused funds. These numbers have increased thanks to the politics of the University, which decided to raise its economic support for people at the lowest income brackets: it redoubled since the last year and is now 600 Euro per month.

Also the number of foreign students in the city has increased: last year 579 and this year 630 students, above all from Spain, have chosen the University of Turin. In regards to this point, the University seat of Via Po has some difficulties: according to the Osservatorio regionale per l’università (Regional Observatory of University) this seat is below the national average of international students it attracts. At the Politecnico the situation is much more better: it may be more attractive thanks to the higher number of courses in English.

Yesterday January 30th 2017 the multi-year Partnership that allows and regulates important collaborations between the University of Turin and SMAT (Water services society of Turin).

This partnership will be focused mostly on those sectors linked with water services like the production and distribution of drinkable water, the recycling of wastes through sewers and the sewage disposal through purification plants.

Taking part in international projects means also an advantage in the placement politics of both agencies. SMAT and the University of Turin want to act together in the creation of partnership networks at an international level and in the organization of institutional events to promote the scientific, technologic and business culture at a local level.

This partnership is one of the initiatives about the environment organized by the University of Turin, which has dealt with the Rapporto di sostenibilità (Report about sustainability) about wastes, water and energy since 2014 and with researches and formative activities about environmental objectives the University is following for the sustainable development and the management of the local area.

The partnership between the two agencies will help focus on environmental questions and develop the broadcasting of this information to the citizens.

35 students of the University of Turin are taking part in the national project “Promemoria_Auschwitz”: they’re leaving to Krakow and to the old concentration camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau.

This project is supported by the University of Turin and more than 300 students of all the courses had applied.

UniTo is the first Italian university that, in partnership with collettivo Studenti Indipendenti  (Indipendent students organization) and l’Istituto piemontese per la storia della Resistenza e della società contemporanea “Giorgio Agosti” (Institute for the History of the Resistance and the History of the Contemporary Italian Society), supports this trip, not only from an economic point of view, but also through courses of study and research.

“A trip is a shared moment”, so Elena Bisacca, vice president of Deina Torino – “This is a trip through which everybody goes back to their own life looking at it in a different way. It is important to understand how to tell and make understand this experience to the local people that supported this trip”.

The Open Day ESCP Europe is scheduled for Thursday, January 19, 2017, from 2:30 pm to 5:30 pm.

The event will give the opportunity to potential students to discover something more about ESCP Europe, which is the oldest business school in the world, it was founded in 1819. With its six campuses, based in Berlin, London, Madrid, Paris, Turin and Warsaw, the school has a European identity with a global perspective. The Italian campus of ESCP Europe was founded in Turin in 2004. It offers a wide range of intercultural and multi-campus courses: first level degrees, 5-years degrees, Masters, MBA and Executive education.

During the Open Day each candidate will have the opportunity to speak individually with staff, professors and alumni, and to discover all the courses of the Campus of Turin.

The event is free, but reservation is recommended via email to: info.it@escpeurope.eu

Like every year in January, Creative Days IED Torino are about to start. The Istituto Europeo di Design offers a great chance to students , who are attending the 4th and 5th year of high school and are interested in creative professions, to find the best course of study for their passions. The first appointments will take place from January 2017: they will present every single IED Torino course in Design, Fashion and Visual Arts and make creative aspirants work in designer clothes!

During Creative Days, IED organises free workshops with a limited access, which allow students to work in a team building a real project in the areas of interest, under the guidance of professors and experts in the field. At the end of the workshop, IED Turin will also release a certificate of participation for school credits.

The first workshops will be those of Visual Arts.

The Photography workshop will be inaugurated on 31st January 2017, followed by those of Graphic Design, Illustration and Animation and Advertising Communication in February and April.

It will be then the turn of the laboratories of the School of Design, which in February will explore the world of Interior, Product Designers or Transportation.

As for Fashion field there will be workshops in Fashion Design and Jewellery Design and Accessories in April.

For those who want a 360 ° panorama on the world of design, creativity and design methodology, IED will also organise Design Thinking workshops.

All activities will take place at IED Torino, in Via San Quintino 39, from 2.00 pm to 6.00 pm.

If you want to attend the Creative Days IED TURIN, you must reserve your place by a web registration.

The ranking of the Italian public universities, drawn up by Sole 24 Ore every year, has just been published.

Politecnico di Torino emerges victorious: it makes a leap forward five places compared to last year and, therefore, earns 7th place in the overall ranking, preceded only by the Politecnico of Milano, if you consider only polytechnic university.

The new edition of the university ranking by the newspaper uses 12 indicators to assess the quality of teaching and research of Italian Universities. In the case of teaching they evaluate indicators, such as the quality of teachers, the conditions that allow students to graduate, the possibility to offer work experience and internships abroad, as well as contacts with other Italian and foreign universities. As for the research subject of assessment were the quality of scientific research, the quality of PhDs and the ability to get external founds.

On the basis of these twelve indicators, the remarkable growth of the Politecnico di Torino (+ 5 positions in a year) stands out; just the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia could do better, 6 positions more than last year.

Also the University of Turin ranked better than last year, but just one position higher, however it’s a result that must not be disdained, because Sole 24 Ore explains, Polytechnic Universitys have their own characteristics, and make their own competition on the basis of the characteristics of engineering and architecture students, that, on average, are more punctual than their colleagues in the humanities.

The exhibition “Nativity. Masters and young artists of the Accademia Albertina interpret the theme of the New Start” will take place from 20th December, 2016 to 22nd January 2017 at the Pinacoteca Albertina.

The exhibition, curated by Luca Beatrice, Professor of art history and contemporary art Critic, is organized on the occasion of the Christmas period as an opportunity of confrontation between teachers of the main courses of the Accademia Albertina and some outstanding students. This year the Nativity is the theme that students have developed artistically.

Nativity is an exhibition of sixty works that want to interpret the theme of the New Start, taking account of the Catholic roots of our tradition, but also of a secular vision, that is open to cultural diversity and of faith, which is the foundation of civilization and tolerance. Different styles, techniques, languages ​​and means are used: from figurative painting to conceptual art, from video to installation, from sculpture to photography, from folk art to fine mental expressions and many other solutions, stimulated by varied and unorthodox interpretations of the subject, some more literal, other more free.

The exhibition enables visitors to enjoy the best creative works of the Accademia Albertina – which, particularly in recent years, has been hosting students from all over Italy and from abroad – in a truly international perspective, reflecting a variety of glances, visual creativity and cultures that are the revealers of our time.

The National Agency for Evaluation of Universities and Research Institutes (ANVUR) present its reports, which assess the quality of the Italian University and Research.

The University of Turin got the 12th place in the assessments, which have been made over a period of eight months and involved 118 thousand jobs, created between 2011 and 2014 by 60.000 teachers and researchers.

The rector Gianmaria Ajani says he is satisfied with the result, since the University of Turin is “one of the few universities in the North, that confirmed previous assessments.” In fact – he adds – “only our university and Trieste confirmed their ranking, while there is a great revival of universities of Central and South Italy, which had been penalized in previous assessments.” If someone asks the rector the secret to get the same rank, he answers that the result is due to the decisions taken in recent years: they worked on the selection of research products, asking departments to focuse their energies in their own best areas.

The Politecnico di Torino has been ranked 22nd, but Rector Gilli stresses “this type of ranking rewards especially generalist universities, active on several fields of research.” However, “we ranked 25th in the previous survey, so we have recovered three positions and if we consider only Polytechnics, we surpassed Milan, that stood before us, and that is now 25th”, he affirms proudly. For this reason, it will be important to examine the rankings, that are based on the evaluation of individual departments, which will be published by Anvur in the next few days.

 

 

Enrollments for the II Level Master in Design for Arts and Cultural Innovation are now open.

The master, offered by the Politecnico di Torino, deals with strategic and planning aspects in the fields of art and design and aims to train cultural mediatiors among workers in the field of architecture, of the art system and the public.

The master was created after a careful assessment of cultural and business characteristics of the area – Turin – that allowed to identify the multidisciplinary training needs of professionals, who, in addition to a solid humanistic background, can also develop projects for new business and cultural production models through the use of new technologies.

The Master in Design for Arts and Cultural Innovation offers a comprehensive and structured training course, which allows participants to address strategic and planning aspects, particularly in the arts and design sector. The course aims to train cultural mediators among professionals in the field of architecture, of the art world (artists, curators, gallery owners, journalists, technicians) and the public.

The deadline for applications is scheduled for 16th January, 2017.

For more information, please visit the website of the Master.

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