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Gasparini, a knowledge entrepreneur with an international vocation

, by Davide Ripamonti
Thirty years after his death, a conference at Bocconi commemorates one of the most important figures in its history. With the participation of Guatri, Sironi, Giavazzi, Romani and Secchi

Thirty years after his death, but also 50 years after his return as a professor to his university, Bocconi commemorates Innocenzo Gasparini, one of the men that molded its history, with a conference (Thursday, 29 January, 15:30, classroom N02, piazza Sraffa 13). The speakers will be the Vice President Luigi Guatri, the Rector Andrea Sironi and professors Francesco Giavazzi, Achille Marzio Romani and Carlo Secchi. Gasparini graduated in 1944 with Giovanni Demaria, and after a distinguished academic career in the United States, at Oxford and then in Italy, he returned to Bocconi in 1965 as a full professor, and became Dean, and finally, in 1975, Rector.

"Gasparini was an important figure, engaged in various fronts, and a real knowledge entrepreneur," says Carlo Secchi, a pupil of Gasparini's, professor emeritus in the Department of Policy Analysis and Public Management. "He was an entrepreneur in research, working at an important project with the National Research Council; in teaching, managing the transition from the Bocconi old model to the new one based on the distinction between business administration and economics with their various ramifications, a model that lasted until the early 2000s. And he was also the father of Des – the combined Bachelor and MSc in Social and economics disciplines - the flagship programme of the University for many years".

Rector Gasparini, explains Francesco Giavazzi - professor in the Department of Economics and former Director (1990-1994) and President (1995-2002 and 2008-2010) of IGIER, the Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research at Bocconi – had also the merit of opening the way for students and teachers to make experience in the United States, where he had studied thanks to a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship. "Before Gasparini, studying in the US wasn't a widespread habit. Students and academics who wanted to make experience abroad", says Giavazzi, "looked mainly to England. This was a real turning point, a sea change whose rewards Bocconi is reaping in these years.".

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