Business and nonprofit

We provide expertise and instrumentation for consulting services, studies, analyses and experimental testing.
We conduct commissioned research and provide consulting services in the fields of technology, medicine, law, business, and the humanities. We guide you in identifying the most appropriate department or interdepartmental research centre for the specific research area, analysis or experimental trial being commissioned.

In relation to the payments due for consulting and commissioned research services, it is possible to benefit from tax incentives.

Multi-year scientific collaborations with PhD students are possible by funding of research fellowships or scholarships. An academic tutor and a business tutor will supervise the research activity on a specific topic agreed upon together. By integrating into your R&D team a young researcher, whose doctoral activities will take place partly at your company, you will be able to develop a medium-to-long-term research project, and acquire innovative and highly qualified skills.
The PhD student may later be employed, taking advantage of incentives (high-level PhD apprenticeship) and tax incentives (excellences bonus).

Find out how to collaborate with a PhD student

We can participate together in research and innovation projects on issues related to the most important social challenges of our time at the regional, national and European levels. When participating in competitive calls and related initiatives, we can help you identify research groups and facilities to collaborate with.
With more than 300 projects funded at the European level by Horizon 2020 and numerous other projects funded at the national and regional levels, we are among the top Italian universities in terms of attracting funding from competitive calls.

Check out the competitive calls and initiatives in which we are involved

Joint research laboratories are physical spaces where equipment is shared, and where your employees and our research groups work in close contact, fostering the contamination of ideas, everyday discussion and the mutual transfer of competences and training.
The joint laboratories may be set up on the University premises or within your company, based on a multiannual cooperation plan and medium-long term investments.

We cooperate in the design and implementation of joint events linked to research and innovation topics. Depending on specific requirements, there are a range of formats on offer:

• Information and networking events: meetings and direct contacts, as well as presentations and opportunities for cooperation with us, often with internal and external testimonials and partner institutions;
• Round tables: scientific and technological meetings between academia and industry on specific topics and future trends, targeting mainly the operators of individual sectors;
• Workshops: a format suited for translating the needs of individual companies with interests in innovation and highly specialised research with a view to scouting academic competences;
• Challenges: requested and promoted by highly innovative companies, stimulating new ideas and solutions created by students and young researchers;
• Hackathons: targeting teams of students at the proposal of companies wishing to increase the level of innovation of specific solutions, both technological and otherwise.

Businesses and non-profit organisations funding research and development activities are entitled to tax incentives, including business tax reductions, income tax deductions, and simplified procedures for establishment and management.

Patents are a means of transferring knowledge, produced within innovative research programmes, to businesses and the community.
Businesses can take advantage of the University’s intellectual property rights through exclusive and non-exclusive licences, transfers, exploitation agreements, option contracts, and also have the possibility to access the consulting services of inventors to facilitate their application to their own products or processes, or for further developments.
Our patents are divided into 7 areas and apply to numerous production sectors:

• Agriculture and food
• Chemistry and biotechnology
• Pharmaceutics
• Electrical and electronic engineering
• Mechanical and construction engineering
• Medical engineering
• Vegetable varieties

Find out more

We promote and support spinoffs and startups, innovative businesses developed by enhancing the results of research activities of our teaching staff or based on their students’ ideas, playing a key function in system integration and networking, leading to synergies with industrial, commercial and financial partners.
Various opportunities for cooperation with businesses are available:

• Hackathons: through specific projects, businesses set problems to be solved together with students, to develop new ideas and intuitions;
• Mentorships: joining the community of University of Bologna investors;
• Investments: investing in a startup or a spinoff, venture capital, business angel and equity crowd-funding, promoting the development of businesses with great potential for growth;
• Interventions in activities like inspirational talks, seminars, workshops, events;
• Support for the promotion and design of businesses by students or coming from research results;
• Design activities for networking initiatives between start-ups in the ecosystem of the University of Bologna.

Find out more on the I.D.E.A. website

Oper.space is our centre for innovation. We connect universities, businesses and institutions, so that together we can tackle complex societal problems through innovation pathways that generate solutions centred on people's real needs.

Learn more on the OPER.SPACE website

We support you in your innovation processes and related organisational and professional changes, which often require the updating of competences or the acquisition of new ones. Starting from your requirements, we define and develop customised vocational training projects using competency-based learning models.
You will be guided in identifying the most appropriate solutions within our broad range of programmes which, at different levels of study and vertical integration, covers every topic in the scientific, technical, technological, legal, regulatory, social, psychological, economic and managerial fields.

Visit the dedicated page for more detailed information

Every year, we produce a wide variety of talents ready to enter the job market, and support companies in their search for qualified personnel among our graduating students and graduates.
The opportunities for businesses run from teaching partnerships, coming into contact with students before they graduate, to Job Placement services, designed specifically to facilitate contacts with and recruitment of fresh graduates.

Visit the dedicated page for more detailed information

Strategic industrial partnerships are medium/long term agreements on issues of common interest, aiming to run activities in the fields of: research and development, innovation, human capital, corporate social responsibility.
They imply the willingness for concrete commitment on both sides, within a programme aiming to work synergistically to reach ambitious goals.
Within these partnerships, the key objectives are:

• to consolidate lasting relations for investments in long-term research and development, implementing advanced and complex research programmes with highly innovative experimental contents;
• to share equipment, laboratories and research infrastructures to incentivise cooperation, contamination and skills transfers, also involving students and PhD students;
• to jointly participate in EU, national and regional initiatives and calls for funding;
• to cooperate in activities aiming to stimulate business innovation processes (technology transfer, open innovation);
• to invest in the growth of future human resources, supporting PhD programmes and research fellowships and facilitating the recruitment of new profiles, and in the enhancement of today’s human resources, within skills updating and integration paths.

Strategic partnerships create constant dialogue between the participants in order to share needs, expectations, strategies and priorities.

These partnerships are based on the signature of multiannual cooperation agreements, setting forth the main contractual clauses, coordinated by a joint management committee, with the support of a specific department. These agreements also ensure the careful planning and monitoring of all the activities, fostering greater involvement and coordination on the company side, between the various business functions and lines, and on the university side, between different departments involved in the joint activities.

Our strategic industrial partnerships

See the list of strategic multi-annual collaboration agreements reached with businesses, regional and national associations of undertakings, and specific production chains.

Supporting the initiatives, projects and activities of the University will promote the image of your company.

Find out how to activate a sponsorship

Cooperation ensures greater strength, through the integration of all economic, social and cultural realities, running initiatives for the community and society as a whole, not only locally but globally. More and more businesses are showing their sensitivity, interest and desire to invest in corporate social responsibility initiatives, which are part of our institutional mission and founding values, and in some cases these become an integral part of the business strategy.

Companies and non-profit organisations interested in collaborating with us in this area can take advantage of our expertise and experience to implement their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) projects. Numerous researchers are already actively contributing to the CSR projects of large companies, primarily in the fields of healthcare, sustainability, and development cooperation.

In many cases, these projects capitalise on research experience, but the opposite can also be said, with corporate social responsibility projects triggering further research, once more fuelling that virtuous circle of knowledge and civil society.

Businesses working on the same corporate social responsibility initiative topics as the university and wishing to support them can contribute to their implementation, making available their own experience, providing materials and instruments or funding.

We have aligned the objectives of our Strategic Plan with the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. The initiatives aiming to achieve these goals come in many forms: sustainability projects in environmental, energy and transport fields, social innovation and development cooperation projects, activities to enhance the artistic and cultural heritage, educational and sports initiatives. All these projects demand a very high level of multidisciplinary integration, and our many competences and disciplines are an indispensable added value for their success.