Spina Award for Teaching Excellence and Innovation
The Italian Association of Management Engineering (AiIG) and Gianluca Spina Association are pleased to announce a new award for excellence and innovation in teaching in memory of Gianluca Spina, Professor of the School of Management of Politecnico di Milano, and past president of AiIG, who passed away unexpectedly in 2015.
The aim of the award is to highlight the importance and centrality of teaching and encourage commitment and dedication to training and education as the primary function of the Management Engineering community.
We accept proposals for educational initiatives that show both excellence and innovation and capture the emerging trends in society, among young people and in learning processes, often as a result of technology spreading through all areas of life and education. The award is targeted to individuals or groups of people who have developed innovative and excellent initiatives in teaching and training within the field of Management Engineering or management training.
Candidates should have completed their PhD within the last 15 years; in case of groups it is required that the responsible or the member(s) that have carried out the predominant activity in the design and implementation of the project have obtained the PhD within the last 15 years.
These initiatives can include, by way of example only:
- Teaching material (e.g. case studies with teaching notes, textbooks, simulations, serious games, software, teaching materials);
- Teaching methods (e.g. workshops, project works, flipped classroom);
- MOOCs and other educational products based on e-learning;
- Educational products that are innovative in the teaching format or content design (courses, Masters, Executive Education, Pedagogical training);
- Learning assessment methods;
- Studies and research on the learning processes of Millennials and the generations to come, with operational guidelines on how to modify teaching approaches;
- Studies and research analysing the skills necessary for the managers of the future and suggesting the changes necessary in the educational contents of managerial and Management Engineering courses;
- Educational initiatives dedicated to spreading management culture, having a particular social relevance and impact (such as initiatives related to universities’ third mission, training in developing countries).
Candidates wishing to participate in the award must submit the following documents (preferably in digital format):
- Description of the candidate’s teaching initiative, to include the following:
- Summary of the initiative, including its main educational objectives;
- Presentation of the most innovative and significant features that express the excellence of the initiative;
- Explanation of the reasons why the proposed action is particularly effective when compared to other similar initiatives
- Summary of the main results when after implementing the initiative (objectives achieved, number of people trained, satisfaction, effectiveness of learning, awards received, etc.)
- Selection of material representing the initiative (for example, the material itself when the submission refers to teaching material, the web link to the MOOC or software for digital material, published articles and reports for studies and research, etc.) and the outcomes and results of the initiative (e.g. assessment given by course participants, ratings and reviews by experts or other third parties, awards received, etc.)
- One or more referees to be used as a possible source of information on the effectiveness and relevance of the candidate initiative.
- Summary of the candidate/s teaching work and experience
A three-member commission suggested by the President of Gianluca Spina Association and appointed by the Executive Committee of the Italian Management Engineering Association (AiIG) will evaluate the submitted proposals according to the following criteria:
- The initiative’s innovation and excellence;
- The initiative’s proven effectiveness in learning;
- Its ability to respond to changes in learning processes for the generations to come;
- Its concern for the social role of education;
- The candidate/s teaching curriculum of excellence.
Submissions are to be entered by September 6th, 2021 and sent for the attention of the President of AiIG at the following addresses: presidenzaaiig@unipa.it
and/or
Presidenza AiIG
Dipartimento di Ingegneria
Università degli Studi di Palermo
Viale delle Scienze
90128 Palermo, Italy
The winning entry will be announced and presented by the winner at the plenary session of the AiIG Annual Scientific Meeting (October 2021), receiving a prize of € 4,000, co-funded by AiIG and AGLS. The materials presented by the candidates will be published, with the authors’ permission, on the AiIG website (https://www.ingegneriagestionale.it/ ) in order to create a repository of excellent teaching practices for management engineering.
Gianluca Spina
Gianluca Spina (1964-2015) graduated with honours in Electronic Engineering in 1988. From 1990, he taught management and business economics at Politecnico di Milano in the Management Engineering, MBA, Executive MBA and PhD programmes. From 2000, he was Full Professor of Business Organisation and Management in the Department of Management Engineering at Politecnico di Milano. His research interests covered the fields of industrial production, purchasing and supply chain relationships, with a focus on strategy and organisational aspects. He wrote about 180 publications on these topics, including six books and more than 30 papers published in international scientific journals. He was President of the Italian Association of Management Engineering (AiIG) from 2011 to 2013. From 2001, he was at the helm of MIP, the Business School of Politecnico di Milano, first as Director and from 2011 as President. While President, Gianluca Spina gave a massive boost to the school in terms of international recognition and standing and was the drive behind obtaining the European Foundation for Management Development certification and in developing many partnerships with prestigious business schools in Europe, Asia and America. Under his leadership, MIP entered in the Financial Times rankings of the top 100 business schools in the world. He was member of various international scientific associations and he was nominated to the Fellowship of the European Operations Management Association. Gianluca placed education and training in Management Engineering and management in general at the core of his career, believing in its fundamental social value, both for individuals and for the development of society. In recent years, Gianluca often questioned himself about the future of education and pushed for continuous innovation in methods, content and training formats. Gianluca often pointed out the risk that “a person stimulated from all directions at once will be less inquisitive and less likely to analyse themselves or put things into mental order, so everything becomes an experience rather than a quest where research is based upon personal effort and elaboration. For those not used to research, analysis and synthesis, learning can become passive”.
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