Abstract:

It is impossible to talk about teaching without speaking about innovation in research and industry domain. It is therefore necessary to explore the best modalities of learning-by-doing approaches investing in specific programs, able to train students, research fellows, doctors and professors and thus constitute a vehicle of growth for the economic system. This will permit also to find a professional position suited to their specific abilities and skills. The aim of this paper is to present new teaching models, supported by research and industry, guiding students and graduates towards new market challenges. In today's technology-driven economy, the competitiveness of the national and international system depends both on the ability of companies to compete in science-based sectors and on the ability to select innovative ideas and accelerate their development process. Higher education courses are immersed in the context of research and technological innovation, always understood as an interdisciplinary process in the method and a public-private type in the approach. These courses are based on learning by doing, learning in action, learning on demand and problem-based learning strategies. These extremely pragmatic approaches guarantee the trainees, once the course is completed, not only extremely relevant knowledge and technical skills linked to the labour market but also and above all a real knowledge of the operational domain, a network of relationships with the main actors both within and outside the organization which promoted the training and, in most cases, a set of results such as patents, prototypes or innovative methodologies. In today's phase of technical-scientific and economic-productive transformation at international level the competitive and innovative capacities of a country are less dependent on the capacities of single companies and, on the other hand, more connected to the territorial and social ability to generate or strengthen an appropriate framework of organizations which constitutes the basis for favourable interactions aimed at innovation. As mentioned, higher education is therefore conceived as a sartorial (tailor-made) process capable of producing results both in terms of skills and relationships immediately usable on the market. This condition requires Universities to start a deep reflection on the most effective ways of knowledge sharing concerning the results of scientific research. Attention should be paid to the most suitable types of science-based entrepreneurship support in order to create innovation containers, territorial (and cross-territorial) clusters characterized by the co-presence of the main players in the innovative system, highly qualified human capital, companies engaged in R&D together with institutional investors.

Keywords:

Learning-by-doing, tailor-made, higher-education, interdisciplinary, Research-Training-Innovation, framework.