The course combines design, application and managerial skills with a capacity for scientific research, conducted with depth and methodological rigor. This combination is considered essential to professionally enhance the research doctor, who will be able to operate as a researcher, designer or manager with a high technical-scientific profile. The doctorate provides a solid applied design culture aimed at putting knowledge and engineering research directly at the service of technological innovation, both in products and processes, as a key to business development and competitiveness and to the efficient production of services in the public administration. The objectives of the course include, in addition to involvement within the work group in which he or she operates, the creation of direct collaborative relationships between the doctoral student and national and international industrial, business and academic entities, which may constitute a subsequent employment opportunity after obtaining the degree.
Given the strongly multidisciplinary nature of the doctorate, the educational objectives are primarily methodological.
During the first two years, the training includes a teaching component aimed at consolidating linguistic and IT skills, covering foundational and methodological scientific disciplines, and addressing organisational aspects of research. These also relate to participation in national and international research funding calls and the valorisation of research outcomes, for instance, through publications and patents. In these initial two years, emphasis is placed on studying the state of the art in the discipline of interest, refining the primary research topic, and defining the methodological approach.
Subjects of general interest to all doctoral students are combined with topics specific to the candidate’s chosen area of focus, with provisions to address any gaps in the student’s prior knowledge. Concurrently, individual research topics are developed in greater detail, potentially including a period of placement in companies or research institutions of international standing.
The training activities offered by the doctorate include a diverse range of courses and seminars, each lasting at least eight hours. These are delivered primarily by members of the teaching staff, as well as by national and international experts with recognised expertise from both academic and business backgrounds. The seminars and courses cover topics of cross-disciplinary and predominantly multidisciplinary interest, combining theoretical content with practical applications, illustrated through case studies and examples of project-based implementation of the concepts discussed. se studies and examples of project-based implementation of the concepts discussed.
The doctorate has so far had an employability rate, at the end of the doctorate, of 100% (public/private sector). The doctorate trained by the course has a solid, methodological and multidisciplinary preparation that allows him to be placed in a variety of work contexts. In addition to the university and national and international research institutions, particularly important employment opportunities are constituted by public and private companies, both national and foreign, that operate both in the industrial sector and in the production of goods and services, such as companies active in the IT and telecommunications sector, companies that provide logistics and management consultancy services, as well as companies in the biomedical supply chain.
Public administration also constitutes an important outlet, with particular reference to the applications of IT in the medical-health sector and energy management. The training of the PhD allows him a professional placement typically with tasks related to research and development activities as well as advanced design with cutting-edge tools and methods, but also with roles oriented to the management, management, optimization and planning of production and logistics processes. Furthermore, the opportunities related to the freelance profession and to autonomous entrepreneurial paths should not be overlooked.