PhD in Intersectoral Innovation

The programme trains professionals for academia, business, and industry by fostering interdisciplinary skills. It emphasizes collaboration between academia and manufacturing, offering tailored training aligned with business needs. Students work with supervisors from both sectors, combining coursework and research for impactful careers in innovation.

The PhD programme in Intersectoral Innovation intends to develop a cadre of professionals equipped with the field-specific and interdisciplinary skill set needed to access, both during their doctoral programme and in their professional career thereafter, entirely novel professional opportunities. This decidedly intersectoral training will pave the way for a career in academia or in business or industry, facilitating the transfer of knowledge and techniques intrinsic to the academic sphere to the world of manufacturing and production. These professionals will become a driving force for an increasingly connected and effective cooperation between business and academia. Our students will be uniquely poised to contribute specialised knowledge in scientific, technological, and societal innovation in their chosen fields.

The multidisciplinary nature of UNIMI allows the institution to develop doctoral-level training with high-level, field-specific and interdisciplinary training customised in an innovative way to the needs of the businesses partnering with our doctoral programme, and the manufacturing and public sector at large. Students will have access to a broad network of research institutions through which to conduct research in Europe's most sophisticated research facilities, thanks to the nationally and internationally relevant projects in which our programme faculty participate. This level of international exposure is ensured by UNIMI? 's status as the sole Italian member of LERU (League of European Research Universities), and founding member (in 2019) of the 4EU+ Alliance, along with five other major Universities (the Sorbonne, Charles University in Prague, and the Universities of Heidelberg, Warsaw, and Copenhagen), with the mission of creating a European university campus marked by the international mobility of its students, instructors, and staff, and an organic synergy between the classroom and the research laboratory. There are presently 34 PhD programmes available at UNIMI, which can be grouped into three macro-categories: science and technology; medicine and healthcare; humanities, law, and social sciences. Over the past few years, there has been a major push within each doctoral programme to draw top talent within each of these areas from amongst the University's own faculty, and from leading instructors and experts at other institutions and organisations. The Intersectoral Innovation faculty will be made up of business leaders, University instructors possessing a high level of scientific knowledge coupled with contacts in both the business world and the public sector, and finally of the coordinators of UNIMI's current doctoral programmes (or their deputies).

The broad range of research topics explored within the University's 34 PhD programmes will allow students to identify the best educational pathway to reach their research goals, with the active support of the programmes. business partners, not to mention the manufacturing and institutional infrastructure for which Milan, and the Region of Lombardy more generally, are renowned. To that end, each student will have the support of two supervisors, one from within the University, and one business leader. These ad-hoc programmes will be developed in sync with the company and the PhD programme's faculty and will require both University coursework as well as research activities.