UKE PASS Activities

Since its establishment, UKE PASS has offered, on the one hand, its students and, on the other, companies the opportunity to create a fair connection between job supply and demand in order to be as responsive as possible to the needs and requirements of companies and to the skills acquired by graduates.

The main activities of the structure, over time, have concerned the activation of curricular and degree internships, the management of relationships with companies through the stipulation of specific agreements, support and accompaniment in the active search for work through the careful preparation of students' CVs, counseling paths, periodic updating of new skills acquired, support in the management of interviews with the related reporting and monitoring activity in order to also identify any critical issues along the way.
Furthermore, another qualifying element of the activity of UKE PASS, has concerned the promotion and organization of meetings with companies interested in recruiting initiatives, the promotion of job and career orientation workshops, the support to students and graduates in starting their own business activities, assisting them in the initial phase of development of the idea.
The structure operated in a socio-economic context that was not particularly favorable. The territory of the province of Enna, in fact, is located in the Sicilian hinterland in an area with a prevalent agricultural vocation, with a low number of companies although with a good incidence of artisan companies, with some production sites in the industrial area of Dittaino near which in recent years an important commercial center has arisen, in a geographical context that continues to suffer the weight of economic indicators that are not always positive. In 2015, the province could count on a GDP per capita on an annual basis (ISTAT, 2015) equal to 12,763.00 euros compared to a national average of 23,870.00 euros, again in the same year an unemployment rate equal to 21.5% against the national 11.9%, exports on the provincial GDP equal to 0%. Despite this evidence, the territory presents different assets, for example, with regard to tourism and cultural heritage. Consider, among all, the centers of Morgantina and Aidone, the Villa Romana del Casale. In this context, Kore University has taken on the role of driving force of economic and social recovery, having seen its first active degree courses in the academic year 2005-2006, and which has tried in recent years to provide academic and study responses to young people in the province and beyond. Within Kore, the role played by the UKE PASS structure was to promote contact between students and new graduates of the University with the professional world, encouraging the alternation of study and work moments aimed at making them concretely aware of the local, national and international job market and being able to competently and autonomously manage their active job search, improve transversal skills, provide the tools aimed at making them acquire greater awareness of themselves and their abilities to receive training aimed at creating and improving self-entrepreneurship. As can be well deduced, before the establishment of UKE PASS the territory had never had a similar structure. The temporal development of the various activities, carried out by UKE PASS, has made use of a methodological approach divided into several phases that can be summarised as follows: organisation and communication of the initiatives, ongoing monitoring, any training sessions, self-assessment and supervision of the tutors. In line with this, the various initiatives conducted over time have always been oriented and conceived as moments of relational study of topics of interest: motivation, self-efficacy, self-assessment, definition of training and learning objectives to promote employment and effective entry into the world of work, definition of the setting, use of tools, simulation of group interviews, preparation of video curricula and preparation for Skype interviews, etc. In this way, students have had the opportunity to apply the notions acquired during their studies to real cases, to get to know and directly observe companies through company visits, to gain experience in the world of work during their studies, to test their skills and entrepreneurial abilities for a possible work collaboration. Finally, the students' training profiles have been completed thanks to the collateral training initiatives with the aim of also transferring the so-called transversal skills. Specific actions have concerned the strengthening of the so-called soft-skills, problem solving skills, creativity and critical thinking. These latter skills are now commonly considered among the most important for the future and often prove to be fundamental in the world of work. Among the subjects involved in the various activities, a crucial role was played by companies, public bodies, professional orders and trade associations. Normally, the relationship with the various stakeholders was born and developed already during the students' educational paths, through the activation of internships and the development of joint projects, the latter allowing to better finalize the study paths according to the needs of the productive world and, at the same time, allowing companies to interact with students, facilitating their path to entering the world of work. Furthermore, to strengthen the relationship between the academic and business worlds, the University has promoted, within its teaching activities, the analysis of business cases and the development of project work on specific topics, particularly relating to management and business management, through the direct involvement of local companies. Clearly since the beginning, the structure has always conceived the development of the various initiatives in the perspective of public engagement in an attempt to increasingly strengthen the relationship between teaching and scientific activity and the world of work in order to minimize the mismatch phenomena that indicate a misalignment between the skills emerging from university courses and the skills required by the labor market; over education or the phenomenon of hiring, internships, curricular placements, fixed-term/permanent contracts not in line with the level of study and training acquired with the achievement of the three-year and/or master's degree. In order to encourage the employability of graduates and also improve the standard quality of the services offered, UKE PASS, since 2016, has given life to a unique experience in the national panorama: the creation of the regional network of university placement. Together with the placement offices of the four Sicilian universities of Palermo, Catania and Messina, a coordination network has been created aimed at creating a synergic relationship with a view to strengthening the job placement of Sicilian graduates. The objectives of the network are to:

The impact generated by the activities described in Table F, in the territorial scope and in the period taken as reference, can be distinguished in relation to the added value for the beneficiaries and to the economic, social and cultural dimension.

Among the beneficiaries of the actions carried out by UKE PASS are certainly students and companies. A possible example characterizing this dual beneficial impact can be found in the results of the Agreement (see the attachment to Table L), signed between the University and one of the main Italian companies operating in the legal and tax consultancy sector, TLS – Associazioni Professionale di Avvocati e Commercialisti (PwC member firm). Through this Agreement, the company recruited graduates from the Libera Università degli studi di Enna “Kore”, stimulating the maximum commitment of the University to maintaining the best levels of training, supporting international mobility activities, orientation to study courses, introduction to the world of work and intermediation in the labor market. In concrete terms, the students have benefited from TLS n. 6 paid curricular internships per year starting from 2016 which have translated into the same number of fixed-term employment contracts at the end of the internship.

The concrete impact results of this relationship have led TLS, for its part, to benefit from the training activities carried out by the University, as well as from the development of research activities in scientific fields connected with the area of its economic operations and to the transfer of the results of such research in the specific thematic area of "transfer pricing", consolidating and developing, within the territory of Enna, a network of collaborations at university level, capable of generating a context favorable to innovation and the development of human capital. Since 2017, a division of the company operating in the economic field of transfer pricing has been present at the premises of the Kore University of Enna.

With this initiative, the province of Enna, which as previously described, in 2015 had 0% of exports on the provincial GDP, finds itself hosting an operational headquarters of a multinational that decides to establish its own research center on transfer pricing at the University, a topic that as is known concerns internal transfer prices for companies operating in different countries subject to different tax regimes.

Without seeking any univocal causal link at the end of the observed period (2019), it should be noted that according to ISTAT surveys (2020) in Italy all provinces exported goods – from Enna, with just over 8 million euros, to Milan, with almost 29 billion.

Equally representative can be considered, with regard to the economic, social and cultural impact, the various business creation activities born within the structure such as the “Birrificio Artigianale 24 Baroni” and “Smart Island” (see the video interviews linked to Table L).

The “Birrificio Artigianale 24 Baroni” was born in Nicosia in the province of Enna, the year of foundation is 2014, from the will of two twin brothers graduated in Business Economics at Kore to give visibility and prestige to their territory. The entrepreneurial idea arises from a careful valorization of what the territory can offer, such as raw materials of excellent quality, among these the water, rich in mineral salts that are perfectly suited to the product, giving a decisive imprint to the beer giving it a unique roundness. In 2018, thanks to an exponential development path, the Brewery exports its product to the United States and various European countries for the first time.

Smart Island, which is now a company registered in the special section of the business register as an innovative startup, has as its main objective to create and distribute new technologies that allow consumers and companies in the agri-food chain to approach the world of agri-food in a more effective and technological way. In 2015, the startup received the StartCup Sicilia award and was subsequently selected to participate in the National Innovation Award, reaching the final. Since 2016, Smart Island has decided to undertake an acceleration path with Digital Magics, a certified incubator of innovative startups, listed on the Milan Stock Exchange since 2013.

Looking at the differences arising from the actions undertaken, compared to the starting situation in which the case study was placed, although a comparison is extremely difficult, since before the period taken as a reference the structure in question was in the start-up phase of its activity, the data shown in the following Table H are quite evident, compared to which in the period preceding the one observed the various indicators were all equal to zero.

In the previous Framework G, ample space was given to the benefits deriving in terms of positive impact of the collaborations established with various companies or entities through the stipulation of specific agreements. In the period taken into consideration, the training and orientation internship agreements stipulated with companies amounted to over 1,500 units. The internships activated over 4,000.

1. Operational protocol for the development of the FIxO School and University Placement Program services (signed on 20/11/2012 with impact also in the period under examination);
2. Framework Agreement between the CRUI Foundation for Italian Universities and the University of Enna Kore (signed on 06/07/2012 with impact also in the period under examination);
3. Memorandum of Understanding for the Third Service of the Employment Centre of Enna (signed on 27/11/2013 with impact also in the period under examination);
4. Agreement of the Department of Cultural Heritage and Sicilian Identity (signed on 01/15/2015);
5. Regional Placement Network Protocol (signed on 21/10/2016);
6. Agreement with the Management of the Juvenile Justice Center of Palermo (signed on 04/07/2018);
7. Agreement between the Institutes of Bioimaging and Molecular Physiology of the National Research Council IBFN-CNR (signed on 11/18/2018);
8. Agreement on training and orientation internship at the Regional Department of Civil Protection (signed on 12/17/2019);
9. Memorandum of Understanding for the performance of internship activities between the Court of Enna (signed on 01/30/2019).

In addition to the self-entrepreneurship paths started in the period 2015-2019, UKE PASS has further supported the signing of employment contracts for 56 students.
The signed employment contracts concerned offers from multinationals in different industrial or service sectors, such as LIDL, IBM and TLS – PWC firm, respectively in the large-scale retail trade, IT and legal and tax consultancy sectors.
Furthermore, the contracts involved offers from nationally important companies such as Generali Assicurazioni and from locally based companies including Tecnosys, Fire Group and Gruppo Arena.
In one case, a contract was also concluded with a public body, this is the case of the regionally-owned financial company IRFIS.
In another case, employment was obtained abroad, in particular at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.
In a very particular case, it was a start-up born within the University, Smart Island, that signed an employment contract with a new graduate.
In 2017, in particular, 6 Higher Education and Research Apprenticeship contracts were signed within the FIxO Project.

Pisano, V., Ferrari, E.R., and Fasone, V., (2016). “The orchestration of business models for territorial development”, Measuring business Excellence, 20 (4), pp. 72-83.