The Strategic Plan

A rapidly changing society

For 160 years, Politecnico di Torino has been educating engineers, architects, designers and urban planners with integrity, a rigorous approach and according to high quality standards. These professionals have been playing an important role in the growth of our city, our industry and our country.

In recent years, deep societal challenges have been occurring, especially in developed countries, due to the disruptive effects of globalisation and the advent of new emerging technologies: the digital transition, the climate change, the increase in inequalities, the ageing of the population, the stagnation of industrial production, are just a few examples.

University: from “Factory” to “Platform”

Our University must evolve to make a continuous impact on a rapidly changing society. This is the key goal of the new Strategic Plan of the Politecnico di Torino.

Instead of being a “factory” of “standard” highly qualified professionals, but no longer fully functional to a rapidly changing entrepreneurial and local context, our University must become a “platform”:

•  to open up to the contribution of professionals and industry in our classes;
•  to take an active part in the processes of innovation and lifelong learning;
•  to be the driving force of the sustainable development of our society.

The student at the centre: a university welcoming 40,000 "smart" students

We will increase our students from 34,000 to about 40,000 to help fill the gap in our country in terms of graduates compared to the European average.

In this perspective, we are going to launch a new professional Bachelor’s degree programme in Manufacturing Engineering, as successfully done in other European countries, in close collaboration with the local Higher Technical Institutes and the business associations.

Today we need more flexibility, more critical sense, more ability to collaborate and carry on new projects involving complementary competences, more ability to build and manage concrete projects.

For this reason, we will put students at the centre of the learning process providing them wuth more activities in laboratories, more project and team work, more soft skills, more education in social and human sciences to help them better understand the world in which they will act.

The impact of research putting doctoral candidates at the centre

By safeguarding the fundamental role of disciplinary research as a tool for the scientific and cultural growth of faculty members and as a breeding ground for truly radical discoveries, we will increasingly invest in interdisciplinary research to create innovation, by fully implementing thematic applied research centres. We will strongly promote collaborations among individual researchers, groups, departments and research institutions.

We will more and more favour the Doctoral programmes, increasing by at least 50% the number of Doctoral candidates working at Politecnico di Torino.

A thematic technology transfer chain for our city and the local area

We will instil in our students, in our Doctoral candidates and even in our researchers and lecturers a passion for innovation, providing them with proper targeted tools and funds.

We will create reliable supply chains that will link education, research, innovation, financial services and the enhancement of the intellectual property’ value in spatially contiguous areas to create poles of business development, that will attract hubs of large industries, small and medium enterprises, start-ups and will root our graduates in our territory. Multifunctional poles will be created on themes such as industry 4.0, energy, digital transition, smart mobility, circular economy, space economy.

People at the centre: a beautiful, sustainable university, functional to our missions and culturally flourishing.

We will invest in new human capital and competences to provide better education and research. Our faculties will grow up to more than 1000 from the current 850. We will give career and growth opportunities to anyone working in our University, including our technical and administrative staff. 

Our campus will be attentive to the quality of life, culturally effervescent, a venue for recreational and sport activities, sustainable and equipped with modern spaces and functional to the fulfilment of our missions, to enable those who work and study at Politecnico di Torino to give their best with motivation and sense of belonging.