HISTORICAL TIPS

The University of Calabria, situated in Southern Italy, is a public institution initiated in 1972. Even though the idea of a university in Calabria dates back to the fifties, almost twenty years elapsed before the idea became a reality with a Parliament law in 1968. In that year the university founding charter was granted, while its statutes were passed in 1971. The construction of the university campus started in 1972 and since then a continuous and visible expansion of new buildings on the campus is taking place. Its particular architecture is due to the co-operation between two architects: the Italian Gregotti and the Danish Martensson.
Unical is a medium size university with about 35,000 students. The university's annual budget is of more than 40 millions of Euro, and land, buildings and equipment are worth far more than 400 millions of Euro.
The University of Calabria has six Faculties (Arts, Economics, Engineering, Mathematics, Physics and Natural Sciences, Pharmacy and Political Sciences), twenty-seven degree courses and sixteen university diploma courses. It is organised into 24 departments. Teaching staff is composed by more than 450 units - including full professors, assistant professors, lecturers and research assistants - while the administrative staff amounts to more than 700 units.
This university is the only example of a residential university campus in Italy. For what concerns the university campus, its management and services, it is important to mention the “Centro Residenziale”, which provides accommodation and leisure facilities to students. In the residential area the Sports Centre, the Health Centre, and the Centre for Arts, Music and Performance are also located. Moreover there are a Centre for Radio and Television, the University Press, the Language Centre and several other interdepartmental centres.
One of the biggest and unique libraries in the whole of South Italy has been built on the University campus and is accessible to internal and external users. For details on the University libraries please link to the following Web Site: www.biblioteche.unical.it.
Most of the departments in the University do research at national level and in a number of sectors have achieved international standards, as the existence of many post graduate doctorates proves.
Many researches are financially supported by organisations external to the university and, indeed, Unical provides scientific backup for many projects in the Calabria Region. Often these projects are developed together with scientific collaborations of other prestigious institutions both in Europe and in other foreign countries.
As a matter of fact the University of Calabria is making great efforts in promoting the development of the Region both at national and international level. This line of action has been successfully testified by a quite recent CENSIS¹ survey, in which the university has been ranked in the tenth place out of a scale of fifty Italian Universities, actually above the average in nation-wide university ratings.

¹Censis, Centre for Social Studies and Policies, was founded in 1964 and carries out socio-economic studies and research.
It enjoys the support and participation of several large public and private institutions. For the past thirty years it has constantly carried out studies, consultancy services, and proposals in social areas: education and training, employment, welfare, territorial networks, environment, economy, local and urban development, public government, communication, and culture.
Research is mainly carried out on behalf of Ministries, regional, provincial and municipal governments, Chambers of commerce, business and professional associations, banks, private companies, network managers, international agencies and in the context of UE programmes.