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The Department of Engineering at the University of Palermo has been founded in 2019,from the merging of three previously existingengineering departments.

The Departmentmanages, coordinates and supports teaching, researchand the so-called third-missionactivities.The third mission is today recognized as an important academic mission: it involves all the activities addressed at maximizing the social and economic impact of knowledge, such asknowledge transfer, technological transfer and outreach.

The creation of a single large Department of Engineeringwas motivated by the awareness that the response to the complexity of modern societal, scientific and technological challenges increasingly requiresthe deployment of inter- and multi-disciplinary approaches, whose effectiveness largely benefits from an integrated scientific, technological and administrative support framework.

The Department of Engineering supports, within a shared cultural framework, the implementation of:

• High-quality teaching, training and learning
• Competitive and impactful research
• Engaging knowledge transfer and outreachpolicies (third mission)

Teaching.The Department of Engineering offers and supports the implementation of inter- and multi-disciplinary courses, responding to the challengesposed by complex real life scenarios, by efficiently leveraging on the multi-disciplinary expertise of its staff.

The integrated management and coordination of teaching and training activities as well asthe enhanced collaboration between staff coming from different cultural backgrounds - civil, industrial, manufacturing and information technology engineering -promote cross-fertilization and smooth exchanges with the stakeholders, contributing to the regional development of Southern Italy.

Research. The Department of Engineering promotesthe excellence of inter- and multi-disciplinary research. Inter-disciplinary collaboration, shared best practices, encouraged synergy among different research groups and the subsequent expected cross-fertilization are poised to enhance the performance of the Department in next national and international research assessments and surveys, improve its international reputation and attractiveness and increase its capability to attract funding and resources from national and international competitive research programmes.

Third mission. The existence of a common cultural andadministrative framework within the Department facilitatesknowledge and technology transfer processes and the exploitation of knowledge for the benefit of society at large. The Department encourages and supports the creation of patents, spin-offs and startups, with the objective of transforming academic knowledge into regional societal and economic sustainable development and technological innovation. The Department also promotes exchanges and engagement with companies and policy makers, in a constant effort addressed at facilitating aseamless entry of students into employment and at attracting investments into higher education and research.Its inter-disciplinary nature makes the Department of Engineering a key public actor on several topics of scientific and technological interest. Engaging knowledge communication, dissemination, exploitation and transfer as well as outreach activities are part of the core academic mission.

The Department of Engineering is open to collaboration with external scholars, research groups, other academic departments within and outside the University of Palermo as well as public and private research institutes sharing its core values and cultural, scientific and technical themes. The presence, within the Department, of several groups with a broad array of scientific interests favors the formation of larger fundamental and applied research structures, e.g. research clusters or inter-departmental centers.