The PhD Course in Labour, Development and Innovation, promoted by the Marco Biagi Department of Economics and managed in collaboration with the Marco Biagi Foundation, responds to the need to train highly qualified professionals equipped with analytical, intervention and design tools to interpret and govern the processes of transformation and development in the world of work, in companies (industrial, service, public), institutions and territories in the perspective of sustainable and inclusive innovation. Particular attention is devoted to the understanding of the dynamics of the "great transitions", technological and ecological, of which the transformative effects on the regulatory, economic-financial and organizational-managerial aspects are analyzed, also in the interweaving with the issues of inclusion and sustainability in the world of work and companies, environmental, economic-financial and social.

The Course adopts a multidisciplinary approach to research and training that balances the use of quantitative and qualitative research methodologies, combined with the development of solid theoretical foundations drawn from multiple disciplinary fields, such as legal sciences, economic and statistical sciences, psychological sciences, and the adoption of a comparative and international analysis perspective.

The Course is part of the E4E Doctoral School (Engineering for Economics – Economics for Engineering and the synergy with the other Doctoral Courses within the said School (PhD Course in Mechanical and Vehicle Engineering “Enzo Ferrari”; in Information and Communication Technologies; in Industrial Innovation Engineering and in Civil, Environmental and Materials Engineering) further enhances the multidisciplinary approach to training and research that distinguishes the PhD Course in Labour, Development and Innovation.

The PhD Program benefits from an important and qualified presence in the faculty of professors and researchers structured in universities and research centers abroad and the involvement of visiting professors who enrich the educational offer every year. The presence in the Teaching Board and the collaboration with international professors and researchers ensures contact with research centers abroad, promotes the mobility and participation of PhD students in the international scientific community.

PhD students are encouraged to carry out periods of study / research at foreign universities or research institutions, also through dedicated funding. There are numerous collaboration agreements with universities abroad that provide for teacher exchanges and mobility of students and from 2020 there is a co-protection agreement with the Pablo Olavide University (UPO) of Seville. The multidisciplinary and international composition of the Teaching Board stimulates innovative theoretical and applied research paths.

Finally, the approach adopted by the PhD Course in Labour, Development and Innovation enhances integration with the productive fabric and with social and economic operators, starting from the design of training and research paths to the evaluation/enhancement of their results, for example through the involvement of the interested parties in the Advisory Committee, also in the perspective of improving employability and intra-academic and the impact in terms of future sustainability of the national and international territory.

The collaboration with the Marco Biagi Foundation and the integration of the PhD Course with the economic, productive and social fabric of the reference territory offers PhD students the opportunity to carry out research activities on specific projects defined in agreement with external subjects; participate in national and international calls for funding research on specific topics of common interest; design training initiatives and dissemination of research results to a non-specialist public.