A case study of service innovation in education: the role of the international mentorship programme director
By Eleonora Pantano
The University of Calabria offers an innovative and modern perspective on how to integrate service innovation in education. This university was established in Southern Italy in 1972, and hosts 14 Departments with more than 33,000 students to date. The economy surrounding the institution is mainly characterized by small enterprises and family businesses, which results in a huge and constant effort to develop international programmes that attracting students, researches and enterprise support.
In this scenario, Management Engineering emerged as one the courses that attempted to promote international activities that would improve the quality of education for future engineers. Innovation management, service innovation, and operational research are at the core of the programme, and aim at educating the future workforce, in order to benefit the local economic development. The development of this programme provides a meaningful example for how integrating the international vision and opportunities offered by partnering with ISSIP, provides new tools that may increase the quality of the education provided.
Our partnership with ISSIP officially started in 2013, when Dr. E. Pantano (post-doc researcher and teaching associate at Management Engineering) was introduced by Prof. H. Demirkan into ISSIP, and started to actively participate in digital events and other network activities. Dr. Pantano then advised the Board about the possibility to cooperate with ISSIP for creating new value for students. Subsequently, Prof. F. Guerriero, the Director of the Management Engineering programme, promoted the creation of the new role of “international mentorship programme director for Management Engineering”, with Dr. Pantano being the first appointee. The goal of this position was to strengthen the international relationships, to introduce students to the professional life in large enterprises, and to create a bridge between ISSIP, the university, and international organizations. In particular, the main duties of the new director consist of:
– recruiting the best students for promoting joint activities with ISSP
– reinforcing the links between ISSIP and university activities
– providing students with an additional international tutoring
– identifying frameworks for future internationalization programs developments.
The benefits for students attending the M.sc. in Management Engineering can be summarized as:
-possibility to interact with scholars and professionals in the ISSIP network
-possibility to enhance communication skills through the most recent media
-possibility to be supported by foreign scholars and professionals, while collaborating remotely on joint projects.
– possibility to establish contacts with representatives of international organizations such as Cisco Systems, IBM and HP
-possibility to be part of an international network that could support students for a future job finding after graduating.
To date, three promising students enrolled in the first year of Master Degree in Management Engineering (expected graduation in 2015) have been already recruited and officially started their cooperation with ISSIP for a one-year project that will be part of their educational program. Please refer to the announcement of the new ISSIP volunteers in this newsletter to ‘meet’ these students.