Team
We are a group of professors, doctoral students, researchers, and post-docs who work closely with innovative companies and support institutions' desire to learn and experiment with innovation methodologies and Open Innovation.
Clio Dosi - Oper.Lab Coordinator
Management engineer and researcher at Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna in the Department of Business Sciences, where she coordinates Oper.Lab. She obtained her Ph.D. in General Management from the University of Bologna and has been a visiting scholar at prestigious European schools (Cass Business School, HPI Hasso Plattner Institute, Esade business school). She is a CERN Ideasquare fellow - one of the founders of Ideasquare and part of the Attract network. She studies organizational dynamics that enable companies or research centers to develop innovation. She designs educational programs to support the growth of students and professionals as innovation actors. She teaches at some business schools and in master's courses in engineering, and is a member of Design Society, PDMA Product Development Management Association and Italian Association of Management Engineering.
Matteo Vignoli - Oper.Lab Scientific Director
Associate Professor at Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna, Department of Management, where he is also the scientific director of Oper.Lab. He is "building the future" through research, education, and enterprise, applying Design Thinking and the Reggio Approach. Matteo teaches in various master's programs and business schools and works on innovation projects with global organizations. He has been a visiting scholar at Stanford University and Ryerson University and is a founding member of the Challenge Based Innovation CERN initiative. He is responsible for Open Innovation at Almacube, academic director of the Food Innovation Program, trustee of the Future Food Institute, and global leader of the Future Food Ecosystem.
Bernardo Balboni
Associate Professor at the Department of Economics Marco Biagi of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, where he teaches courses in Data Analysis for Economics and Management and International Economics and Marketing. He has been the Scientific Director of the Contamination Lab at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia and Vice Director of the Interdepartmental Research Center AIRI - Artificial Intelligence Research & Innovation. He has been a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Cultural Industries at the University of Peking and Visiting Assistant Professor at the Department of Business Studies at the University of Uppsala. His research activity has developed in the areas of international and industrial marketing and entrepreneurship, focusing in particular on the growth paths of small and medium-sized enterprises and on the relational dynamics that influence the links between companies.
Ludovico Bullini Orlandi
Fixed-term researcher type b) in Business Organization at the Department of Business Sciences of the Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna and scientific co-director of the Master in HR & Organization at the Bologna Business School. He conducts research mainly on issues related to digital transformation and its consequences within organizations, human resource management and organizational behavior.
Nicolò Cocchi
PhD student in general management at the Department of Management, University of Bologna. He is also affiliated with Oper.Lab, the Observatory for Open Innovation at the Department of Management, University of Bologna. His research focuses on innovation management, especially new product development, design thinking, and open innovation.
He earned his MSc in management engineering from the University of Pisa in 2017. He was a visiting student at the School for Business and Society, University of York, from 2016 to 2017, and at the Department of Management and Production Engineering, Politecnico di Torino, in 2017. Following the completion of his MSc, he worked as a research fellow at the Department of Sciences and Methods for Engineering, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, from 2018 to 2020.
For the last 5 years, he has been actively involved in the design and implementation of various open innovation initiatives aimed at training students in the design of innovative ideas to address business and societal challenges. In this capacity, he is a collaborator of the Open Innovation Unit of Almacube, the incubator, accelerator and innovation hub of the University of Bologna and Confindustria Emilia.
Nunzia Coco
Researcher at ETH University in Zurich, at the Department of Management of Ca'Foscari University in Venice and the Department of Management at Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna. She has a Ph.D. in Management and works as an innovation consultant for companies, focusing on innovation management and design-led process management. She collaborates as a researcher and her research interests include creative processes, co-creation, design thinking, and open innovation. She has previously taught at both Design and Management universities, providing an interdisciplinary perspective on innovation with attention to social and economic implications. Her research focuses on exploring mechanisms, technologies, methods, and processes that enable a culture of open innovation in organizations.
Maria Cecilia Flores Coluccio
Industrial engineer and designer, currently a PhD candidate in Management at Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna and tutor for the courses on Innovation Management and Economy for Innovation. She has been a tutor for the Innovation & Product Design course at the University of Buenos Aires and the National Technological University, and an assistant for the Creativity course at ITBA. Her main research interests are Innovation, Creativity, and Organizations. She has over twelve years of professional experience in the areas of management and business development, with a strong focus on technological activities. She has worked as an Innovation Manager at the Technology Transfer Office (TTO) of the University of Buenos Aires. Currently, she collaborates with the New Entrepreneurship, Spin-off, and Startup Unit at the Knowledge Transfer Office (KTO) of the University of Bologna.
Ettore Gorni
Management engineer, PhD student, and teaching assistant for the Organizational Change and Business Process Design course at the Department of Business Sciences at Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna. His research focuses on Open Innovation Science. He is also a co-founder of the social design association APG - Youth Promotion Agency and has been involved as a coordinator, researcher, facilitator, and trainer in over twenty social projects dedicated to young adults.
Alessandro Grandi
Full Professor of Management Engineering at the School of Engineering of Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna, President of Almacube srl and from 2019 to 2022 President of the PNICube Association. His activity focuses on the management of technological innovation processes; policies, structures and services for the development of new high-tech businesses; project management.
Rosa Grimaldi
Full Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management at Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna. Since 2021, she has been delegated by the Mayor of Bologna for Economic Promotion, International Talent Attraction, and Innovation. She is the Director of the Executive Master in Technology and Innovation Management at the Bologna Business School, a program aimed at high-potential executives from the most important innovative Italian companies and SMEs. She is a member of the Board of Directors of MAPS SpA and BolognaFiere SpA. From 2015 to 2021, she was the Vice-Rector for Entrepreneurship and Corporate Relations at the University of Bologna. From 2014 to 2016, she was the Coordinator of the International Ph.D. in Management at the University of Bologna. According to a study published in January 2020 in the Journal of Technology Transfer (Bengoa et al., 2020), Rosa Grimaldi is listed (and is the only woman) among the 25 most important and influential authors of scientific articles on technology transfer in the major international journals.
Giuseppe Mincolelli
Associate Professor at the Department of Architecture of the University of Ferrara, where he teaches in the Industrial Design course and is responsible for the Final Synthesis Laboratory in Industrial Design. In addition, he teaches Design and product quality control and development methodologies for training and specialization institutions such as Certottica in Belluno and Enaip in Varese. After collaborating with various design studios, he began his independent professional activity in 1993. His studio, which mainly deals with product design, interface design, and furniture, has created projects and products for numerous companies, such as Ducati Systems, Lifter, Marconi, Mondadori Informatica, Novalux, Pramac, Powersoft, Sweda, Tab, Selex, and Imer. He has published products, projects, and articles in various industry magazines.
Claudia Panagia - Oper.Lab Communication Specialist
Communication and marketing specialist, research fellow at the Department of Management of Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna. Graduated in Business and Public Communication, she has several experiences in the startup and innovation world.
Silvia Poli
PhD student in General Management at Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna. Previously, she was a research fellow at the Department of Management at the University of Bologna, where she conducted research on the availability of collaboration between universities and companies. She has a Master's degree in Forecasting, Innovation, and Change (International Relations) from the University of Bologna. Her main research interests are entrepreneurship, knowledge sharing, and innovation management.
Elisa Villani
Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Department of Management of Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna since December 2018. She is also a Visiting Scholar at the Imperial College Business School since January 2017. Before joining the University of Bologna, Elisa was an Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship and Technology Management at the Free University of Bolzano.
Visiting scholars
Our visiting scholars from the past and present.
Mattia Campanini
Visiting researcher
Management Engineer, researcher and teaching tutor of the Organization and Management of Human Resources course of the Master's Degree in Management Engineering at the Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna. His main research interests are innovation intermediaries and innovation ecosystems.
Massimo Panarotto
Ex visiting scholar
Associate Professor at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden since 2021. His research is focused on developing value-driven models and methods to support the early stages of product development. The research is conducted in collaboration with companies in the space, aeronautics and automotive sectors. He earned a PhD in mechanical engineering from Blekinge Institute of Technology (Sweden) in 2015, and a Master degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Padua in 2011.
He is a member of the Design Society and author of over 40 publications in the fields of systems engineering and engineering design. He has also taught in more than 10 courses in mechanical and management engineering degree programs.
Vivek Rao
Ex visiting professor
Lecturer at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business and College of Engineering and is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. In 2022, he was a visiting professor in the Department of Management Engineering at the University of Bologna, Italy. His teaching spans entrepreneurship, innovation, design, foresight and creative and emerging technologies, and he has authored or co-authored more than 20 peer-reviewed scholarly articles in the fields of design theory, design methodology and design innovation.
In addition to his academic work, his product development, innovation and R&D experience spans public sector, startup and large corporate contexts. Before returning to academia, he worked as a designer and strategist at IDEO, where he helped Fortune 500 clients innovate in sectors ranging from pharmaceuticals to furniture, and as a process R&D engineer at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission Wastewater Enterprise. He holds a BS, MS and PhD, all in Mechanical Engineering, from UC-Berkeley.