Università degli studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia

A new bachelor' s Degree Programme in Information Technology Engineering in Mantua

From next academic year 2018/2019, the Bachelor’s Degree Programme (three-years) in Information Technology Engineering will make its debut in Mantua, the city renowned for having being ruled by the House of Gonzaga.

This educational initiative is the result of the collaboration between the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia and the Fondazione Università di Mantova (FUM), and is only awaiting for the final approval of MIUR, which was sent the activation request after the green light of the Unimore University Bodies (Senate and Board of Directors) and the Committee of Regional Coordination of Emilia Romagna of 17 January 2017.

Unimore has presented a well structured project, worthy of its tradition of being at the top of CENSIS rankings in the Engineering sector. In addition, the several industrial collaborations that are currently active in technical and scientific departments have made possible to make the programme contents as practical as desired and hence facilitate its future rootedness in the Mantua territory. This will also enable industrial research activities and projects involved in technological transfer, as well as future launches of university spin-offs. 

The degree programme will focus on Industry 4.0 themes, with features that are decidedly innovative compared to the ones currently existing in the national landscape of this sector.

In fact, in a traditional engineering background, the new programme integrates an application approach regarding the design of network-connected industrial plants and products, which meet requirements of IT safety, from the very beginning of their design. Therefore, the purpose of this university degree is to meet the requests coming from all the enterprises in the Mantua and Lombardy area in general: new graduates will easily enter the job market.

In fact, the overall project is the result of a careful assessment of the needs expressed by a territory that back in university year 2015/2016 was estimated to have around 240 students enrolled in Bachelor’s Degree Programmes in IT Engineering, offered by other universities.

“The future of the city needs young people – Mayor Mattia Palazzi points out -. In order to create new job opportunities we need to support the innovation and internationalisation of enterprises. Both objectives require research activities and need to train people on new skills. This is why we are extremely glad about the green light of the University of Modena to the new degree programme in IT Engineering, that will start in Mantua as early as in September. It will be an innovative programme, unique in the national scene, forward-looking to Industry 4.0 and smart environments where the cities, the vehicles, the people, and the industrial products are fitted with smart devices that are designed to communicate with advanced IT platforms. For Mantua, this is an extraordinary and strategic change. A new success for our city, the result of a winning team work”.

“The University of Modena and Reggio Emilia - Rector Angelo Andrisano stresses - promptly accepted the invitation by the Fondazione Università di Mantova to activate a three-year programme in IT Engineering as it held to be extremely prestigious its presence in a city and in a territory in which modern and functional facilities are made available to educational activities, and which has proven to be keen on a future collaboration on activating research laboratories aimed at implanting the presence of work teams of teachers, university researchers and corporate technicians. The whole University is extensively committed to ensure that the project is implemented in the most efficient way”.

 “It is a degree that features innovative aspects compared to the offer of the universities in the nearby, and also for the national scene - Paolo Gianolio, president of Fum, states -. The two pillars on which we have built the training offer, the information technology, and the industry, integrate with each other. IT skills such as the IoT are also included, and they will be sided by other industrial (design, energy systems and logistics) and economical and juridical knowledge (corporate management, industrial law, privacy). The learning activity will be developed both through classes and workshops and group projects. A compulsory internship experience in a company is also included in the programme”.

Professor Michele Colajanni of the “Enzo Ferrari” Department of Engineering points out that “the considerations arising from the discussions with the parties involved of Mantua have allowed us to design an innovative degree programme on a national scale. The most modern skills of IT engineering on software, Internet, cloud systems, artificial intelligence and IoT are enriched with knowledge on smart manufacturing, Industry 4.0, robotics. The Mantua Degree Programme also provides for teaching methodologies focusing on problem-solving and learn-by doing with many hours dedicated to practice and workshops. As a result, graduates will be able to immediately enter the job market and deepen their skills acquired in other master’s degree programmes from different backgrounds.

 “The programme – professor Marko Bertogna of the Department of Physics, Computer Science and Mathematics at Unimore remarks - is the perfect training compromise between IT and industrial subjects. We hope that the quality of teaching methodologies allows us to quickly reach a number of enrolments such as to meet the strong demand for jobs in the territory.

Other than activating an ongoing guidance and tutoring service aimed at disseminating useful information on the offer of other free-choice teachings and to create customised study plans, the programme will promote innovative teaching methodologies (team-based learning, project-based learning) to foster cross-cutting skills in student training. The teaching staff will be made of 5 professors and 4 researchers coming from the following departments: “Enzo Ferrari” department of engineering, Science and Methods of Engineering, and Physics, Computer Science and Mathematics.

A Steering committee, which is currently being defined, made of teachers and representatives of the Fondazione Università di Mantova, the local enterprises and high-schools of the province, will be assigned the task to monitor and keep the training offer up-to-date.

“Teachers selected by Unimore to plan an effective educational programme - professor Massimo Milani of the Department of Sciences and Engineering Methods explains - have been granted a mandate by the University Bodies to develop the active presence of the University on the territory, and since the beginning will be ready to explore new avenues of collaboration with Entities, Institutions and industrial businesses in the Mantua area. This is how Unimore wants to exploit both its capacity to develop collaboration relationships based on applied research and the technological transfer, and its own natural talent to generate knowledge also by means of synergies with the production sector”.

Finally, starting from the Spring 2018, the teachers of the new degree programme will organise meetings and seminars open to the citizens, on the present and the future of information technology and the industrial subjects in the context of a society 4.0.

Categorie: International - english