The CAPTED Center was established as part of the Excellence Project “Educational and Sociocultural Changes and Potentials Related to the Digital Transition”—selected by the Ministry of University and Research and ANVUR for the 2023–2027 five-year period. It aims to explore the impact of the digital transition on human existence from educational and sociocultural perspectives, focusing on three major themes: individual and collective identity, inequalities, and social bonds.

The Center seeks to foster a critical, responsible, and supportive scientific community by bringing together scholars from different generations, both in Italy and internationally.

Center Objectives:

• Advance research on the educational and sociocultural changes and potentials linked to the digital transition (DT) along three main lines: 1) DT and the mitigation of sociocultural and educational inequalities; 2) DT and the formation of individual and collective identities; 3) DT and the strengthening of social bonds;
• Create synergies among departmental research labs engaged in the Center’s activities;
• Integrate basic and applied research through pilot studies carried out in cooperation with public institutions, third-sector organizations, schools, and educational services;
• Foster scientific and cultural exchange among early-career researchers, PhD students, postdocs, and students working on the Center's themes;
• Promote interdisciplinary collaborations to define new lines of national and international research;
• Attract highly qualified scholars from abroad;
• Encourage the publication and dissemination of research conducted by the Center;
• Organize advanced training and educational initiatives on relevant topics.

Main Activities:

• The Permanent Seminar on Educational and Sociocultural Changes and Potentials Related to the Digital Transition; 
• The Cultural and Technological Cluster, which brings together departmental research labs involved in the Center and promotes: 1) interaction among DISUF researchers; 2) development of pilot studies; and 3) integration of research and teaching, involving master’s and PhD students (e.g., theses, internships); 
• Territorial Operational Units, including selected schools, training bodies, and third-sector organizations relevant to the Center’s themes.
   

Scientific Coordinator:
Cristina Palmieri

Affiliated Members:

Contact:
dipartimentieccellenti.disuf@unimib.it

CESCOM (Centre for Studies in Communication Sciences) is the outcome of more than two decades of theoretical, experimental, and applied research in Communication Psychology, Psychology of Emotions, and Cross-Cultural Psychology.

The Center aims to contribute to the advancement of knowledge in communication psychology and related disciplines, and to promote high-quality scientific research in these fields. CESCOM does not adhere to any specific school of thought or predetermined research approach. Rather, it promotes analytical rigour, appropriate use of both qualitative and quantitative methods, critical thinking, and openness to theoretical and methodological innovation in the international scientific community.
In pursuit of its goals, CESCOM fosters interdisciplinary scientific exchange among scholars in fields such as education, linguistics, cultural anthropology, philosophy, economics, sociology, medicine, and psychology. It also promotes international collaboration, contributing to the globalization of Italian psychological research.

Key activities include:

• Organizing national and international seminars, continuing education initiatives, and conferences to promote theoretical and methodological reflection in communication psychology;
• Participating in national and international research projects;
• Engaging in public outreach to disseminate scientific knowledge;
• Promoting international research exchange and enhancing global research networks;
• Providing training and consulting services.

Scientific Coordinator:
Fabrizia Mantovani

Affiliated Members: 
Mario Barenghi 
Marco Castiglioni
Paolo Ferri
Mario Gilli
Ilaria Grazzani
Laura Macchi
Fabrizia Mantovani
Susanna Mantovani
Maria Grazia Strepparava
Valentino Zurloni

Contacts: U16 building
e-mail: fabrizia.mantovani@unimib.it 

CREAM promotes ethno-anthropological knowledge related to various regions of the world by supporting the research activities of both Italian and international scholars. It organizes seminars, conferences, debates, and discussions on current topics to encourage intercultural dialogue and integration.
Ethno-anthropology is seen as a powerful tool to understand the lived experiences of social existence beyond the grand narratives and conflicts shaping the contemporary world.

Key activities include:

• Designing and implementing national and international research projects, including through institutional partnerships;
• Conducting research and providing consulting services in the field of ethno-anthropology;
• Supporting the research training of young scholars;
• Publishing articles in national and international journals;
• Disseminating research through courses, seminars, conferences, workshops, and digital media;
• Publishing the journal The CREAM Notebooks and related monographs to showcase the Center’s work.
   

Scientific Coordinator::
Roberto Malighetti

Affiliated Members: 
Bargna Ivan
Bellagamba Alice
Brivio Alessandra
Malighetti Roberto
Matera Vincenzo
Mattalucci Claudia
Tassan Manuela
Urru Luigi
Van Aken Mauro
Vignato Silvia

Contact:
U6 Building, room 4097 
e-mail: roberto.malighetti@unimib.it 

CeSDID aims to promote interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research and training involving scholars from general education and specific disciplinary didactics (e.g., hard sciences, robotics, literature, geography).

Objectives:

• To foster collaborative research across education and other scientific disciplines (mathematics, physics, biology, chemistry, robotics, geography);
• To support early-career researchers (PhD candidates, postdocs, junior faculty) in developing a scientific and pedagogical focus on university-level and school-level teaching;
• To promote public engagement and science dissemination on disciplinary teaching in schools and universities, as well as in non-formal and informal learning settings.

Scientific Coordinator:
Elisabetta Nigris

Affiliated Members: 
Barbara Balconi
Luisa Zecca
Enrico Squarcina
Franca Zuccoli
Edoardo Datteri
Martino Negri
Franca Zuccoli

The Center is a key reference point for research in the fields of Medical Humanities and Narrative Medicine, adopting an interdisciplinary and innovative approach to healthcare practice. Through an extensive network of academic collaborations, partnerships with local services, and cultural institutions, the Center aims to enhance the relationship between medicine, narrative, and the humanization of care—contributing to the advancement of a patient-centered medical paradigm that recognizes the individual in their wholeness and uniqueness.

Goals and Objectives:

• To promote research projects with the involvement of scholars and experts who have developed knowledge and expertise in Medical Humanities and in narrative and self-reflective practices applied to healthcare contexts. The goal is to assess the effectiveness of these approaches in relation to the actions and experiences of professionals, patients, families, and organizational leadership;
• To strengthen research and educational activities, with a particular focus on postgraduate university training (notably through the interdepartmental First-Level Master’s Degree in Medical Humanities and Narrative in Medicine);
• To disseminate the culture of Medical Humanities within healthcare and care settings, including through Third Mission initiatives.

Scientific Director:

• Micaela Castiglioni

Contact: medicalhumanities@unimib.it

The Center collaborates with the University of Chieti and the University of Nancy and is supported by the newly established editorial series “Medical Humanities e Narrazione in Medicina”, published by Edizioni ETS (Pisa), co-edited by Micaela Castiglioni and Elio Franzini.

The Departmental Research Center aims primarily to promote research activities along the multidisciplinary lines of its program and to foster the related cultural initiatives. It brings together the research efforts and activities of the Department’s various disciplines, connecting them with research from other university departments and from other Italian and international universities.

Program
Labor and society, understood in their complex interrelation, are the main focus of research at the Raniero Panzieri Study Center. Production—and its relationship with the sphere of the market—is considered the key to understanding and analyzing the contemporary world and its transformations. This is the kind of production whose centrality is said to be in decline, due to the debated and debatable decline of labor power—at least in so-called “central” countries—within the valorization process.
By “labor movements” we refer both to the transformations within the strictly productive sphere and the processes of valorization on the one hand, and on the other hand to the organizational forms grounded in the various interests that drive the world of production. These are interests not only in terms of income, rights, and control, but also of awareness, resistance, and social reference.

In a broader sense, “labor movements” include the tendencies that manifest in collective social behaviors, which analytically cannot be considered separate from the broader world of labor in its various forms. They also include social figures related to rent and credit.
The term “social composition” refers to an investigation into the components of social and political groups, and the ongoing transformations in the structure of social differentiation—especially as they relate to labor movements.
This kind of research emphasizes that empirical investigation does not come at the expense of theoretical reflection. On the contrary, it demands the involvement of various disciplinary perspectives and aims to avoid the widespread self-referential nature of thought that often results from the isolation typical of academic work—an isolation that does not help achieve a critical understanding of how labor processes affect social and political dynamics.

Theoretical inquiry is central when it seeks to understand the multiple dimensions of the social world and its ideological components, insofar as social objectivity is accessible primarily through the theoretical representations that make it intelligible. For this reason, the critique of theories is a key aspect of research.
Analyzing the productive world and its connected social realms necessarily involves the analysis of objective relations and their transformations, as well as the forms of social subjectivity.
Here too, research is understood in connection with rigorous empirical reconstruction, particularly aimed at avoiding speculative approaches that have led to an overemphasis on subjectivity—often disconnected from any real knowledge of the subjectivities that operate within social contexts. These must instead be identified using the tools offered by the various and interrelated disciplines that contribute to our understanding of the social and human world: philosophy, sociology, political theory, economics, history, psychology, pedagogy, and anthropology.
In this sense, the work of Raniero Panzieri—and the theory and inquiry developed under his guidance during a brief period ending in the early 1960s—serves as the historical and theoretical foundation for this Study Center, which bears his name and adopts his approach as a guiding framework for its research, study hypotheses, and cultural initiatives.

Activities:

• Conducting studies and research independently and in collaboration with other institutions, associations, and universities;
• Promoting debates, conferences, seminars, and events at national and international levels;
• Publishing and disseminating studies and research;
• Carrying out, promoting, and disseminating inquiries into labor, society, and politics, both nationally and internationally.

Scientific Coordinator:
Marco Vanzulli

Affiliated Members: 
Luca Basso (Università di Padova)
Alice Bellagamba (Università di Milano-Bicocca)
Avv. Francesco Bochicchio (Università di Parma)
Armando Boito (Universidade Estadual de Campinas)
Andrea Cengia (Università di Padova)
Luigi Ferrari (Università di Milano-Bicocca)
Giovanna Fullin (Università di Milano-Bicocca)
Matteo Gaddi (Fondazione Claudio Sabattini)
Vincenzo Galatioto (Associazione culturale Punto Rosso)
Andréia Galvão (Universidade Estadual de Campinas)
Roberto Malighetti (Università di Milano-Bicocca)
Roberto Mapelli (Associazione culturale Punto Rosso)
Paula Marcelino (Universidade de São Paulo)
Vittorio Morfino (Università di Milano-Bicocca)
Valentina Pacetti (Università di Milano-Bicocca)
Stefano Pippa (Università di Milano-Bicocca)
Gianluca Pozzoni (Università di Milano)
Vincenzo Robustelli (Associazione culturale Punto Rosso)
Zaira Rodrigues Vieira (Universidade Estadual de Minas Gerais)
Fabio Scolari (Centro Studi CUB)
Sergio Tramma (Università di Milano-Bicocca)
Claudio Tuozzolo (Università degli Studi “G. d’Annunzio” Chieti-Pescara)
Silvia Vignato (Università di Milano-Bicocca)

Contacts:
U6 building, room 4127
e-mail: marco.vanzulli@unimib.it

Established through the collaboration of eight departments at the University of Milano-Bicocca, the ABCD Center is dedicated to promoting and disseminating gender studies, with particular attention to the intersections of gender with culture, society, and generations. It aims to foster interdisciplinary knowledge-sharing.

The Center promotes research activities, organizes events, and collaborates with other national and international centers, with the goal of reflecting on and analyzing issues of inequality and difference, and exploring potential ways to address and counter them.
 

ASPI is an interdepartmental research center focused on the preservation and promotion of documentary sources related to the history of psychology and the mind sciences in Italy. It pays special attention to the interplay among the various disciplines involved in this field, including psychology, psychiatry, neurology, philosophy, education, law, economics, and sociology.

The center identifies, collects, and provides online access to the historical archives of “mind scientists” (psychologists, psychiatrists, neurologists, etc.) active in Italy during the 19th and 20th centuries.

ASPI is administratively based in the Department of Psychology, which established it in 2005 along with the Department of Law. In 2019, several additional departments joined the initiative, including the Department of Human Sciences for Education.
For the conservation and management of archives, the Center collaborates with the Historical Archive Hub (PAST) of the Cultural and Documentary Services Area.

BEST4FOOD is a multidisciplinary research center dedicated to innovation in the field of food studies. The center was founded with the goal of identifying the most effective strategies for developing sustainable food systems capable of supporting both current and future generations.

BIPAC brings together the wealth of expertise and experience at Bicocca in research, study, and outreach related to cultural heritage. In this wide-ranging framework, scholars from diverse disciplines collaborate on shared projects, applying a variety of approaches and methodologies. The Center spans a broad spectrum of fields—from the natural, chemical, and physical sciences to social sciences, psychology, education, economics, law, computer science, and communication.

Contributing to the University’s Third Mission and its commitment to University Social Responsibility, BIPAC promotes public engagement programs and supports the organization of cultural and educational initiatives both within and beyond the academic context. Acting as a true hub, the Center aims to expand the visibility of research on cultural heritage and increase its public impact.
 

The Marine Research and Higher Education Center (#MaRHECenter) is a research and teaching station located on the island of Faaf-Magoodhoo (Republic of Maldives). The Center conducts research and education in environmental sciences, marine biology, tourism studies, and human geography.
Its mission also includes educating the public on the protection of this fragile environment and its biodiversity, as well as promoting responsible use and management of natural resources.

In collaboration with the Maldivian Ministry of Fisheries, Marine Resources and Agriculture, the MaRHE Center seeks to integrate technology, development, and sustainability to protect natural ecosystems and enhance human capital.
 

Affiliated Department Members: 
Marcella Schmidt di Friedberg
Stefano Malatesta
Beatrice Ruggieri 
Alice Salimbeni

UniData – Bicocca Data Archive is an interdepartmental research center at the University of Milano-Bicocca, established in 2015. The center serves as a national reference point for data archiving and distribution for research, following the model of major data archives in other European countries and beyond.

CRESPI is a research center in the field of education aimed at connecting and promoting multiple lines of inquiry on teacher professionalism, from early childhood education to upper secondary school.

The recent transformation of CRESPI (originally a centre for educational research on teacher professionalism) into an Interuniversity Research Centre includes the participation of the following universities: Bolzano, Bologna, Cagliari, Florence, Lumsa, Milano-Bicocca, Modena and Reggio Emilia, Parma, Pavia, Perugia, Roma Tre, Sapienza, and Verona.

The center aims to promote initiatives supporting corporate and institutional social responsibility. The globalization of markets, the crisis in corporate and financial governance mechanisms, and growing questions about the relationship between business and society suggest a model of governance based on cooperative and fair stakeholder relations. Understanding and implementing this model requires a deeper exploration of the relationship between ethics and economics.

This calls for the mobilization of new generations of scholars while also setting quality criteria for teaching, research, and intervention models and tools that can turn ideas into management systems for businesses, organisations, and institutions.

To this end, EconomEtica was established in November 2004 as a stable and organised form of cooperation among over 25 Italian universities. It is based at the University of Milano-Bicocca and affiliated with its Department of Sociology.

In 2015, the Centre conducted a national study on university governance through CAWI interviews with Rectors and Department Heads. The results were published in 2016.

Founded in 2000, GEO is an Interuniversity Research Centre established through an agreement among the Universities of L’Aquila, Modena and Reggio Emilia, Pavia, Siena, Turin, Udine, Lecce, and Catania.

Currently, it comprises a network of twelve universities (L’Aquila, Bari, Brescia, Calabria, Camerino, Milano-Bicocca, Naples Federico II, Pavia, Salento, Siena, Trento, and Udine) long connected through joint guidance-related activities.

Center objectives include:

• Identifying reliable knowledge about general youth conditions across age groups, changes in the social and organisational features of educational institutions, and transitions from education to work, to support decision-making in the context of increasing autonomy
• Defining context-specific knowledge needs in local settings
• Promoting the development and dissemination of methods for collecting and applying knowledge useful for decision-making
• Identifying and addressing key issues, including those related to youth, educational processes, guidance, teaching, teacher training, lifelong learning, and institutional strategies such as Third Mission activities
• Creating opportunities for collaboration, exchange of experiences, and interdisciplinary dialogue between researchers and education practitioners

Location:
The Centre is based at the University of Udine.

The PhilHeaD Interuniversity Research Centre for the Philosophy of Health and Disease is the result of a collaboration between:

• University of Genoa (host institution, Department of Antiquity, Philosophy and History – DAFIST)
• University of Bologna (Departments of Philosophy and Communication, and Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences)
• University of Ferrara (Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences)
• University of Milano-Bicocca (Departments of Psychology, Education, Medicine)
• University of Eastern Piedmont (Departments of Economics and Political-Social Sciences, Medicine and Translational Sciences, Humanities)
• University of Florence (Department of Letters and Philosophy)
• Roma Tre University (Department of Philosophy, Communication and Performing Arts)

Objectives:

• To promote, develop, and coordinate research in the philosophy of health and disease, across all relevant scientific disciplines, addressing both theoretical aspects and practical implications, including public health and health communication
• To support scientific debate and publications and provide educational support on the subject
• To encourage interdisciplinary collaboration with other university departments, national and international research institutions, and public/private research units
• To organise seminars, training activities, conferences, and public outreach initiatives within its disciplinary fields, in accordance with current regulations
• To establish research grants or awards aimed at achieving the Centre's goals, as long as funds are specifically designated for this purpose by the donor and in compliance with relevant legislation

Location:
 The Centre is hosted by the Department of Antiquity, Philosophy and History (DAFIST) at the University of Genoa.