CORIPE Piemonte

CORIPE Piemonte (Consortium for Research and Continuing Education in Economics, Piedmont), legally constituted on 7 November 1990, was founded at the joint initiative of the Department of Economics (Faculties of Political Science and Law) and the Department of Economic and Financial Sciences G. Prato (Faculty of Economics) of the University of Turin.

The founding members of the Consortium, other than the University of Turin, are Turin's two major banks through their respective foundations (the Compagnia di San Paolo and the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Torino), the Turin Chamber of Commerce and the Region of Piedmont. Ordinary members are the Province of Turin and the City of Turin. Other institutions interested in supporting CORIPE's aims and objectives are encouraged to consider membership.

The statutory objectives of CORIPE are the following:

- to organise activities in the field of continuing education, including post-graduate courses in Economics and Finance;
- to promote research in Economics, in collaboration with the University, the Region of Piedmont and other public institutions, industries and banks, within the framework of training and/or research projects at national, European and international level;
- to provide consultancy and support services for schools of specialisation, advanced training courses and doctoral programmes;
- to facilitate and provide consultancy support for collaboration between the University and public and private institutions;
- to administer fellowships, scholarly awards and internships in industrial, banking and insurance enterprises, public and international institutions.

The governing organs of the Consortium are the Governing Body, the Board and the Auditors. Members of the Governing Body are the legal representatives of the institutions that are members of the Consortium or their delegates. The statutory composition of the Board is one representative of each of the institutions other than the University of Turin and an equivalent number of members representing the University.

The working budget of the Consortium is made up of contributions from each of the member institutions other than the University, which makes available its material and human resources.

CORIPE's first and major ongoing activity is its one-year Masters degree programme in Economics, now entering its eighth year. All of the core courses and some of the electives are taught in Italian so that the programme has traditionally been attended primarily by graduates of Italian universities.

Students are admitted to the programme on the basis of their undergraduate performance and the results of entrance examinations in Macro and Microeconomics, Mathematics, Statistics and English. Roughly 85% of all candidates admitted have received their degree in Economics and the majority of the others in Political Science.

Classroom hours number on an average 20 per week and attendance is obligatory. The year is divided into three terms, the first and second including required courses in Applied Micro and Macroeconomics, Quantitative Methods, Monetary Economics, Econometrics and Computer Science. Those students who have not already obtained the First Certificate of the University of Cambridge are also required to take a course in English which prepares them to sit for that examination. During the third term students elect to follow the course and seminars related to their chosen field of specialisation and carry out a research project in applied economics. Those who successfully complete the written examinations in each course and seminar as well as the oral finals are awarded a diploma by CORIPE and its founding members.

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The CORIPE Masters degree programme was Italy's first degree programme in Political Economy, as opposed to the several programmes that offer an MBA. The CORIPE Masters degree programme meets an important human resources need common to many sectors of the national economy and to public institutions at national and international level by preparing applied economists capable of analysing both national and international economies and of participating in the process of design and evaluation of a company's development strategies. It also fulfils the needs of those students who are interested in a year of postgraduate studies prior to enrolling in a doctoral programme either in Italy or abroad or to entering a profession.

At the end of the 1996/97 academic year, CORIPE's graduates numbered 189, of which 172 are Italians, one is Chinese, one Somalian and 15 are nationals of various Eastern European countries who were the recipients of scholarships awarded by the Compagnia di San Paolo and by SEAT (a company of the STET telecommunications group and publisher of telephone directories). Roughly one third of the graduates of the first six years have chosen to continue their studies with a doctorate in Italy and/or a Ph.D abroad. Their level of performance has meant that at some of the universities where CORIPE graduates have undertaken their doctoral studies, courses taken at CORIPE are assigned credits.

Those graduates who have chosen instead to enter a profession have secured employment in the financial and industrial world (major ba