Department of Economics and Statistics "Cognetti de Martiis"

Public engagement

The opening (and interaction) with businesses, job market and society, is an essential element of the Department and is witnessed by various cultural initiatives aimed at different audiences. Since 2013 our department has participated in approximately 100 different initiatives for the dissemination of its scientific activities. These activities have involved the majority of the faculty and are directed to an audience either national and international.

The activities focused on several areas: publications for dissemination purposes, public meetings, use of social media. They have involved both public and private institutions and thousands of people have participated. In all these activities the main goal was to communicate important research results of the department using a language (even multimedia) easily understandable to a wide audience. The main effort was therefore to make available to the public results and implications of our research.

The Department has established a lecture named after Luigi Einaudi, a founder of the Department, to held a grand opening of the academic year, in collaboration with the Foundation Luigi Einaudi in Turin. The Lecture is an important opportunity to meet with our stakeholders and it is given by personalities of cultural and institutional high profile, on important issues to the Italian and European society.

• in 2013, the Lecture was headed by Franco Bernabè, former president of Telecom Italy;
• in 2014 by Andrea Enria, president of the European Banking Authority; 
• in 2015 by Marianna Mazzucato, University of Sussex;
• in 2016 by Alfonso Iozzo, Vice President Robert Triffin International and Université Catholique de Louvain.

The Department is an active promoter, in collaboration with the Departments of Law and Culture, Politics and Society, of the project named "Citizenship", funded by Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Torino. The project has the double aim of promoting interdisciplinarity and integration of the research themes of the three departments related to the School of Law, Political and Economic-Social and the opening of Campus Einaudi to the citizens, by offering multiple cultural initiatives.

The Department aspires to be a reference for the business world, trough an intensive promotion of business and financial culture. In this area the Department has organised several important events, among which we can mention "Turin Crowdfunding: crowdfunding in Italy", in collaboration with Consob and the Italian Ministry of Industry. The Department has also initiated the project "Financial Education and youth entrepreneurship: a strategic value for the access to the labor market", in collaboration with the staff "Innovative Entrepreneurial Initiatives" of the University. In this framework the department also organizes the “open days” in partnership with businesses and non-profit organizations, to facilitate the entry of students into the job market.

Particular attention to the relationship between students and the business community is given by the Business Club, an initiative that allows participating students to take part in a series of training sessions with professionals from the world of business, finance and innovation, eventually structuring a business idea (profit or non-profit) and participating  to a final competition with the most important institutions of the Italian Startup ecosystem. In this line the Department has collaborated and hosted in our site the event "Start4To" - a day of study on the world of Start Up, in collaboration with the Confindustria and the Piedmont Region -, and the entrepreneurial competition “UK-Italy Springboard", in collaboration with the British Embassy in Italy. Still in the context of work with young people, the Department is working with the Foundation ItaliaCamp, which hosted the recent competition of business ideas "Barcamp" aimed at teachers, researchers and students of the University of Piedmont and Valle d'Aosta.

For what concerns the Third Mission, it should be noted that it is being set up an academic spin-off called Metro / polis, targeted to be the center of reference for data and research techniques in the field of longitudinal studies in the field of labor and health. Since 2013 the Department is honorary member of the "Turin Finance Committee " at the Chamber of Commerce of Turin, one of the structures most involved in the modernization of the Italian corporate finance, which is particularly designed to encourage the growth of financial expertise of the territory, allowing small and medium-sized enterprises to have easier access to financial markets.

In the context of external relations at national and international level aimed at increasing the potential of research and teaching of the department have established a series of conventions:

a) with the National Institute of Social Security which has to cover the delivery by INPS Department of sample collections of data taken from its archives management in employment, social security and welfare. When preparing such data the department collaborates Association LABORatorio Riccardo Revelli;
b) School of Business Administration of the University of Turin for their cooperation for the realization of the "Workshop on Network Analysis" applied to political organizations and territory (LabNet);
c) ''Association Turin European Capital City " in order to establish a research collaboration and networking and academic institutions in the field of cultural economics, and training of students in degree programs of the Department; 
d) with the company AizoOn for developing a doctorate in higher apprenticeship co-funded by the Piedmont Region (Legislative Decree. n. 167 of 14 September 2011 - Consolidated apprenticeship) under "Data Analysis for Business Intelligence and Social Science "in order to promote processes of education in the field of statistical analysis of large amounts of data and to develop more closely connected with the reality of business in the area. In the same context, the Department has launched a project with Google Faculty Research Awards for the analysis of large amounts of data applied to the study of the evolution of the history of economic thought; 
e) with the University of Toronto (Canada) for the development of joint activities aimed at encouraging and promoting cooperation in the field of education (eg. joint degree programs and international mobility of students), research (development of collaborations and publication of scientific papers, organization of conferences and seminars, partnership in the presentation of project proposals) and capacity building.