Simone is Professor of Entrepreneurship at the University of
Bologna, Honorary Professor at Bayes Business School (City, University of London) and Visiting Fellow of the Center on Organizational Innovation at Columbia University. He earned his PhD from the Management Department
of the University of Bologna, and has been a visiting scholar at
the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and at the Stern
School of Business, New York University. After obtaining the PhD he
was Post-doctoral Fellow at Cass Business School and Research
Fellow at the Centre for
Technology Management of the University of Cambridge. He
is also a lifetime member of Clare-Hall College in Cambridge (UK) and an AIM
Fellow.
His research interests include
entrepreneurship, creativity, processes of social evaluation and social networks. His
works have been published in various international journals and
books, such us American Sociological Review, Academy of Management Journal, Organization Studies, Strategic
Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly,
Organization Science, Research Policy, Industrial and Corporate Change. He was the Principal Investigator of the research project CASE funded by the Italian Research Council under the PRIN funding scheme and leader of the local unit of the project Blindspot, funded by the European Research Council (ERC). In 2016 Simone received the Seal of Excellence by the European Commission in recognition of the quality of his research activity.
He is the co-founder of the Medici Summer School in Management Studies, one of the most prominent and well known international doctoral training initiatives in the field of Management and Organizational Studies.The school is organized yearly in collaboraton with HEC Paris and MIT Sloan.
Simone is
the Deputy Director of the MSc Programme in Management of the University of Bologna and was the founding Director of the
Green Energy and Sustainable Businesses MBA of
the Bologna Business
School.
Over the past 10 years Simone has served as advisor to several startups and is engaged
in various initiatives designed to encourage and support students
in the creation, development, and commercialization of innovative
ideas. In this capacity he has been instrumental in the conception, design and implementation of ICARO, a highly innovative 5 months entrepreneurial education program developed and funded by the Golinelli Foundation to inspire entrepreneurial attitude among young university students through real business challenges.
In 2015 Simone founded UNIBO Launch Pad, the first Italian University-wide entrepreneurial acceleration program designed to foster and cultivate the entrepreneurial talent of young scientists with innovative ideas rooted in their research findings. In 2019 UNIBO Launch Pad was rebranded as ReActor and scaled up at the national level. Simone is a recipient of multiple teaching awards, including the title of Most Inspirational Professor, directly conferred by the MSc students and Best MBA Professor, awarded by Bologna Business School.
For his innovative contributions to the advancement of entrepreneurship in higher education in 2022, Simone Ferriani was a runner-up to the title of European Entrepreneurial Leader of the Year, conferred by ACEEU (Accreditation Council for Entrepreneurial & Engaged Universities) in collaboration with the Triple Helix Conference
