This review illustrates policy actions promoting the entrepreneurial and innovative activities in the Italian Higher Education System, and focuses on 11 case study universities. It discusses strategies and practices adopted by Italian higher education institutions to innovate, engage, and generate value for the society and the economy. This review is part of a series of national reports implementing the HEinnovate framework. HEinnovate is a guiding framework that the OECD and the European Commission have developed to promote the “entrepreneurial and innovation agenda” in higher education.

Libraries have recently begun doing more to support entrepreneurship and innovation within their communities. This volume explores how this has come about, looking at libraries from across North America, Europe and Africa, and helps position readers to better understand what is happening, and how this can be brought to further institutions.

This review finds that Lombardy is the most prosperous region in Italy. But the region faces long-term challenges emerging from an ageing population, immigration and slow adaptation of practices and technologies to enhance productivity.

A “magisterial [and] elegantly written” study of Renaissance Italy’s remarkable accomplishments in higher education and academic research (Choice). Winner of the Howard R. Marraro Prize for Italian History from the American Historical Association Selected by Choice Magazine as an Outstanding Academic Title of the Year Italian Renaissance universities were Europe's intellectual leaders in humanistic studies, law, medicine, philosophy, and science. Employing some of the foremost scholars of the time—including Pietro Pomponazzi, Andreas Vesalius, and Galileo Galilei—the Italian Renaissance university was the prototype of today's research university. This is the first book in any language to offer a comprehensive study of this most influential institution. Noted scholar Paul F. Grendler offers a detailed and authoritative account of the universities of Renaissance Italy. Beginning with brief narratives of the origins and development of each university, Grendler explores such topics as the number of professors and their distribution by discipline; student enrollment (some estimates are the first attempted); famous faculty members; budgets and salaries; and relations with civil authority. He discusses the timetable of lectures, student living, foreign students, the road to the doctorate, and the impact of the Counter Reformation. He shows in detail how humanism changed research and teaching, producing the medical Renaissance of anatomy and medical botany, new approaches to Aristotle, and mathematical innovation. Universities responded by creating new professorships and suppressing older ones. The book concludes with the decline of Italian universities, as internal abuses and external threats—including increased student violence and competition from religious schools—ended Italy’s educational leadership in the seventeenth century.

The recent surge of interest in “digital transformation” is changing the business landscape and posing several challenges, both organizational and sectoral. This transformation involves the application of digital technology in all aspects of business, and enables organizations to create new products and services, and to find more efficient ways of doing business. Moreover, the digital transformation is happening within and across organizations of all types and in every industry, producing a disruptive innovation that can break down the barriers between people and organizations, and help create more adaptive processes. In the information age, it is imperative for organizations to develop IT-related capabilities that allow them to leverage the potential of digital technologies. Due to the pervasive effects of this transformation on processes, firms and industries, both scholars and practitioners are interested in better understanding the key mechanisms behind the emergence and evolution of the digital business transformation. This book presents a collection of research papers focusing on the relationships between technologies (e.g., digital platforms, AI, blockchain, etc.), processes (e.g., decision-making, co-creation, financial, compliance, etc.), and organizations (e.g., smart organizations, digital ecosystems, Industry 4.0, collaborative networked organizations, etc.), which have been categorized into three major areas: organizing, managing and controlling. It also provides critical insights into how the digital transformation is enhancing organizational processes and firms’ performance through an exploration and exploitation of internal resources, and through the establishment of external connections and linkages. The plurality of views offered makes this book particularly relevant for users, companies, scientists, and governments. The content of the book is based on a selection of the best papers (original double-blind peer-reviewed contributions) presented at the annual conference of the Italian chapter of the AIS, which was held in Naples, Italy in September 2019.

In this volume – drawn on experience at Italian universities – the authors infer upon the quality of the education achieved by graduates by surveying their transition to work and further professional paths. Papers are presented on the effectiveness of university education, on employability of graduates, with a discussion on considering the employment rate as the main assessment indicator, on competence analysis for backward assessment purposes and finally on university human capital indicators.