END OF YEAR WISHES TO THE SIMA COMMUNITY

As the year 2023 comes to an end and we are preparing for the one laying ahead, our mind goes to all the activities carried out during this year, to the way they have delivered value to our members and to what we should do next. Notwithstanding the very turbulent and upsetting times we are unfortunately living worldwide, this has been an incredibly enriching year for SIMA.

We have been driven by the idea that SIMA creates value by supporting and engaging our members both individually and as a community. We aim to support our members in the fundamental spheres of value for our career: research, teaching, impact and nurturing a strong and healthy community. We have built momentum on our consolidated activities and enlarged our portfolio with new projects. It has been the year in which we held the inaugural edition of our Festival del Management in Milan and continued to sustain a constant flow of articles on Corriere della Sera and Mark-Up to vehicle our members research beyond academia so as to have far-reaching social impact; we have profoundly modified the processes underlying our Annual Sinergie SIMA Conference in Bari; our initiative Make IT a Case has gained impressive momentum and is now sustained by Invitalia; we have added a new project regarding innovation in teaching models and the role of editors; our research methods school’s activities have grown substantially in both number of courses offered and degree of internationalization; we are amongst the initial restricted number of scientific societies to obtain formal certification for our D&I practices and are promoting research on equality, diversity, inclusion and respect in academia. We have contributed to the organization of numerous tracks for the AIDEA Conference in Salerno. Also, our “Mestiere del docente” has become an AIDEA document that represents the seven different learned societies adhering to the aggregate model. The policy and ethical recommendations that have emerged in the process are now being diffused within and beyond the CUN Area 13 to voice out our concerns and proposals incisively during the re-definition of the rules regarding the access and progression in academic careers. We have actively contributed to the design of the new rules of ANVUR’s journal committee and contribute to the ranking of journals in AIDEA and for the ASN. Our activities for young scholars are gaining an outstanding traction and, on the other hand, we have dedicated more than one occasion to celebrate our “Maestri”.

Driven by the logic of “support and engage”, SIMA has deeply innovated the processes undergirding its activities to encourage members to engage in our projects, so as to take leadership for parts of our activities, expressing creativity and collaborating with other fellow academics to strengthen and extend the reach of SIMA’s community. Amongst the many areas in which these diffused leadership skills have emerged, our thematic groups and our local representatives stand out particularly.

The coordinators and co-coordinators of our 12 thematic groups now manage the tracks of our annual conference to enhance the quality of feedback received by submitting authors, they stimulate new research projects and build an array of competences specific to their area of research, open opportunities to collaborate nationally and internationally with fellow scholars also from other prestigious international academies and institutions. competence building specifiche per il loro ambito di ricerca, creano opportunità di collaborazione a livello nazionale e internazionale con colleghi anche di altre prestigiose accademie internazionali.

Our local representatives have made very constructive suggestions for each of SIMA’s main projects, truly helping vehicle to the fellow colleagues in each university the opportunities we are working to deliver. Also, they are proposing new activities they are happy to carry out and offer to the SIMA community, thereby manifesting the kind of entrepreneurial spirit we are longing to foster. Finally, we cannot but sincerely appreciate the way all our community has come together and united to sustain our representatives in important institutional bodies in academia. Our Local representatives have worked intensely to support our representatives during the elections for CUN and for AIDEA, signaling to all that we play as one large powerful team!

The enthusiasm and passion that all SIMA constituencies have expressed: the Board of Directors and Advisory Board, the Probiviri, the Delegates, our Next Gen team, the Coordinators and Co-coordinators of the thematic groups, the Local Representatives, the Conference Organizers, our Managers and Adele, are the fundamental cornerstones of the many SIMA achievements of the year 2023 mentioned above. Our praise and most sincere gratitude go to each one and all of them.

We look forward to welcoming you to the many activities we are preparing for the new year and to host you in person for our Festival of Management on the 7th and 8th of March 2024 in Milan, for our Annual Conference in Parma on the 13th and 14th of June 2024, for the Winter and Summer editions of the School of Research Methods, to be held, respectively, in Palermo on 24-27th January 2024 and at Certosa di Pontignano, close to Siena, in mid-July 2024.

In closing the year, we would like to pause for a moment and reach out to wish each of our SIMA fellow members, their beloved ones and our international associates and colleagues health, safety and peace during the holiday season and along the New Year 2024!