Prof Adewale Olutola from the Tshwane University of Technology’s Department of Law, Safety & Security Management has been invited to carry out a full-time secondment as an Experienced Researcher (ER), within the CatChain project at the Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi. The project, which is funded by the European Commission at the Invernizzi Center for Research on Innovation, Organization, Strategy and Entrepreneurship (ICRIOS) of the Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi ended early in 2024. Luigi Bocconi is a private University established in 1902.
Prof AA Olutola.
The University of Bocconi’s obligation was to conduct research within the CatChain project where less developed countries or regions strive to close the economic gap as compared to more advanced economies in the Global Value Chain (GVC). The latter (GVC), refers to trade integration across countries.
Prof Olutola said: “Whilst at the University of Bocconi, I first participated with other colleagues in the writing of a research report titled: ‘Structure, specialisation and policy mix of the Malaysia manufacturing industry’. The host had to submit this report to the European Commission. In addition, the host requested me to present a research report written by another group at the Third Catching-Up along the global value chain (CatChain) Conference titled: ‘Catching Up along the Value Chains in different sectors: The case of the Pharmaceutical sector in Brazil’. The CatChain directors also indicated that I am likely to be invited to participate in the next project, since the current project ended early this year.”
Prof Olutola also initiated discussions for possible future collaboration with several research groups. The discussions included writing possible research papers with those research groups on poverty, housing challenges vis-à-vis racial integration, inequality and poverty among custodian officers in Italy and South Africa. These presented enormous opportunities for his current niche research interest regarding poverty and crime, inequalities and criminalities. These are aligned with numbers 1 and 10 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and Chapter 11 of the Vision 2030 National Development Plan of South Africa as well as the 2063 African Union Agenda.
Possible future international collaboration will provide a leeway for pursuing research with other universities as part of the internationalisation agenda of TUT’s Faculty of Humanities.
Prof AA Olutola at Bocconi University.