Ross Macmillan director of Dondena Centre

Bocconi board of directors, in its March meeting, has appointed Ross Macmillan director of Dondena Centre for Research on Social Dynamics.

Established in 2006 thanks to a private donation by Alberto Dondena, who intended to honour the memory of his son Carlo, the Centre has a focus on social dynamics and populations in their economic, organizational and policy contexts.

Macmillan joined Bocconi in September 2011, as professor of sociology, from University of Minnesota, where he was director of the Life Course Center and of the graduate programme on population studies. A specialist of demography and epidemiology, he will strengthen Dondena's focus on the demographic aspects of "health and aging", while continuing to cultivate the Centre's traditional strengths in fertility, family demography, and population forecasting.

"Populations and population dynamics are the foundation of all social life", he says. "They are fundamental drivers of economic relations both big and small and provide the broad and ever changing contexts of organizations and markets that ultimately give meaning to how they operate".

Macmillan moved to Milan with his family. "There is a Bocconi effect in my decision to move to Europe," he says. "Here you are exposed to brilliant colleagues and brilliant students and the potential for cutting edge multidisciplinary research is huge. I'm currently discussing research ideas with colleagues from economics, decision sciences and management in a manner that I never could have never done in different institution".

The board of directors, in the same meeting, confirmed the presidents of three more research centres: Elio Borgonovi at CERGAS (Centre for Research on Health and Social Care Management), Giorgio Brunetti at ENTER (Center for Research on Entrepreneurship and Entrepreneurs) and Paolo Fresco at ASK (Centre for Research on Management and Economics of Arts and Culture Institutions).