The Many Facets of the Department of Social and Political Sciences
Bocconi's Department of Social and Political Sciences is by its very nature oriented toward a multidisciplinary approach to research. In fact, besides political scientists in the stricter sense, it also includes economists, sociologists, demographers, historians and others still. To capitalize on this great wealth of expertise is one of the goals of the department's director, Vincenzo Galasso, who is determined to make the most of it through various channels.
One of these is the SPS Conference on Global Challenges, whose scientific committee in fact includes, in addition to Vincenzo Galasso himself, two figures with different backgrounds: demography and social statistics scholar Alessia Melegaro together with Zachary Parolin, whose research focuses on inequality and poverty in developed countries. The title after all clearly alludes to the Department's vocation to address issues of global relevance by comparing ideas and research.
The conference will take place in mid-June at Villa Doria D'Angri in Naples, and will be held in collaboration with Parthenope University and with the participation of scholars from the other two Neapolitan universities, Federico II and Suor Orsola Benincasa. The program includes sessions dedicated each to a specific topic and moderated by a guest speaker coming precisely from one of the three universities in Naples. The only exception is the one on Economic and Political Inequalities in a Globalized World, which will be curated by Shanker Satyanath of New York University and will address the topic from both a historical and sociopolitical perspective, with insights on industrial relations and recent Italian history.
Other sessions will be devoted to Welfare and Social Stratification, with talks on the challenges of health care systems, and in particular Italy's ; facing mass migration; the social acceptability of vaccines; and, inevitably, the impact of artificial intelligence systems on health care. Health Challenges and Inequalities, Identities and Social Inclusion will be addressed from the perspective of disparities related to gender but also to geographic origin. The session Decision Making in a Complex Environment will be devoted to European governance between crises but also to threats on cybersecurity and the causes of disaffection with democratic values.
The two-day event will also include a panel discussion on the sensitive issue of how to fight school dropout, which will also be attended by the mayor of Naples and former minister for university, Gaetano Manfredi along with Councillor for Education Maura Striano, Massimo Anelli, Giovanna Marcolongo and Vincenzo Galasso.
Galasso, who is the creator of the conference, describes it this way: "I wanted to get out of Milan because I think that by meeting together for two days in another city we can interact more and better, strengthening our team spirit. I then wanted to organize the conference in this way because our task is to ask each other questions about current events. This is also why we will work by grouping ourselves, each with their own expertise, not by subject area but precisely around questions."