Department of Excellence

The IMT School has been awarded the prestigious title of "Department of Excellence" for the five-year period 2023-2027, thanks to the "Economic and Digital Resilience" (RED) project. The award includes funding for an interdisciplinary analysis of economic and digital resilience from a post-pandemic perspective of more than five million euros from the Italian Ministry of Universities and Research.

The project has its roots in the critical issues that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic, where severe travel restrictions and the consequent mass reliance on remote working highlighted the strategic importance of a secure, reliable, and widely accessible digital infrastructure. The radical and sudden changes imposed to cope with the emergency have impacted millions of people's lives and work styles. In some cases, they have facilitated work-life balance; in others, they have led to increased burnout, depression, anxiety, and stress.

The RED project aims to investigate the impact of the increasing digitalization of productive activities on the competitiveness, sustainability, well-being, and resilience of individuals, companies, and territories by exploiting the evidence generated by this unique natural experiment.

Through a dedicated research infrastructure, the Open Lab, and collaboration with external actors, the RED project promotes interdisciplinary research and teaching activities on digital transition and resilience of economic systems.

The Open Lab is designed as a research environment where researchers, companies, organizations, associations, and other external partners collaborate to develop innovative solutions and investigate current and pertinent social problems with an "Open Laboratory" approach.

Following the activities of the RED project, the Open Lab is studying and promoting economic and digital resilience during the post-pandemic transition. This is done through observational studies and online and field experiments. Such experiments aim to understand the impact of remote and hybrid working on employees' productivity and mental and physical well-being, the reorganization of local health services, or the management of critical situations such as drought.

 

Through the Open Lab, the IMT School fosters research in collaboration with external parties interested in testing innovative solutions in their operational contexts.

The Open Lab develops research activities based on data collected in the field and remotely. It develops custom applications and software, uses state-of-the-art instrumentation, or leverages existing databases through advanced data analytics and artificial intelligence solutions.

The Open Lab is run by a multidisciplinary team with expertise in data collection, analysis, and interpretation according to GDPR.

For more details and collaborations, please see https://openlab.imtlucca.it/