University of Padova (UP)

The University of Padua is one of Europe’s oldest and most prestigious seats of learning. As a multi-disciplinary institute of higher education, the University aims to provide its students with professional training and a solid cultural background. essional training and a solid cultural background. The qualification received from the University of Padua act as a symbol of the ambitious objectives respected and coveted by both students and employers alike. Founded in 1222, Padua’s Studium Patavinum was a place of study that readily welcomed Italian students and scholars, as well as those from various European countries searching for cultural freedom and expression. This freedom continues to define and express the essence of the University through its motto as Universa universis patavina libertas. Intertwined within the story of the University of Padua are the many illustrious figures who lived, studied and taught in this city. Such famous names included those who have changed the cultural and scientific history of humanity, from Copernicus to Vesalius, Galileo, to William Harvey, to the more modern Tullio Levi-Civita, Concetto Marchesi, Giuseppe ‘Bepi’ Colombo and many others. The University of Padua has been a proud pioneer of several endeavours, including the first university botanical garden in the world founded in 1545 that now holds its status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In 1594, the first permanent anatomical theatre was inaugurated, and in 1678, Elena Lucrezia Cornaro becomes the first woman in the world to receive a Doctor of Philosophy degree. Still today, the University of Padua holds some impressive numbers. With over 70,000 students (over 7,000 international students) and 2,200 teaching staff within its 32 departments, and 8 schools, the University also employees over 2,400 technical administrators. Accrediting more than 13,000 graduates each year, awarding 5,000 scholarships, and brandishing over 2 million books available throughout its 29 libraries. The University continues to transform its level of excellence in education by offering a vast range of degree programs. Including over 100 bachelor and master degree programs, 10 single-cycle degree programs, almost 100 master degree programs, more than 20 advanced programs, and over 10 specialized training courses. The University includes over 60 specialization schools and 40 PhD schools. For some time now, The University of Padua has enjoyed a high-ranking position in both Italian and international ranking agencies for its quality of teaching, research activities and student services. Confirming results include the number of works held in its scientific research archive, a cutting-edge sector that added 13,000 publications and hundreds of active projects during the 2020/2021 academic year alone. The University of Padua is an institution that looks to the future with an increasingly international and innovative approach. Building on a long tradition and strong relationships with numerous institutions, organizations, and foreign universities, the University of Padua is a member of international networks and participates in research and education projects that involve students and faculty from all over the world. The University of Padua was established in 1222, after a group of students and teachers decided to come here from Bologna. They set up a free body of scholars, who were grouped according to their place of origin into nationes, in which students approved statutes, elected the rettore (rector, or chancellor) and chose their teachers, who were paid with money the students collected. Defending freedom of thought in study and teaching became a distinctive feature which today lives on in the University motto: Universa Universis Patavina Libertas. The introduction of empirical and experimental methods together with the teaching of theory marked the dawn of a golden age. In the 16th and 17th centuries, Padua became a workshop of ideas and the home to figures who changed the cultural and scientific history of humanity. They included Andrea Vesalio, who founded modern anatomy, as well as the astronomer Copernicus, and Galileo, who observed the skies here. Padua also vaunts the world’s first university botanical garden and a permanent anatomical theatre, which was built by Girolamo Fabrici d’Acquapendente. William Harvey, who became famous for describing the circulation of the blood, studied in Padua, and in 1678 Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia became the first woman in the world to be awarded a university degree. The fall of the Serenissima Republic of Venice in 1797 marked the beginning of a dark age. Padua fell under the rule of first the French and then the Austrians, passing through Italy’s tumultuous Risorgimento, which also affected the University. Between the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the University expanded to include the faculties of Engineering, Pharmacy, and Political Sciences together with its traditional faculties of Law, Medicine, Arts and Philosophy, and Sciences. The advent of Fascism curtailed the University’s values of free thought and cultural independence. Its professors swore allegiance to the regime, after which the approval of Italy’s racial laws and the expulsion of Jewish professors opened one of the darkest periods in the University’s history. Rector Concetto Marchesi shook the University from its slumber and, at the height of the German occupation made a courageous appeal to the students to fight for the freedom of Italy. For its sacrifices in the name of Liberation, the University of Padua was awarded a gold medal for military valour, the only university to receive such an honour. During the post-war period, the University opened faculties of Education, Agricultural Sciences, and Psychology and, in the 1990s, faculties of Veterinary Medicine, and Economics and Business Administration. In the 20th century, the University of Padua produced great literary figures such as Diego Valeri and Concetto Marchesi; engineers of the stature of Giuseppe Colombo, the “master of celestial mechanics”; mathematicians such as Tullio Levi Civita; jurists Alfredo Rocco and Livio Paladin; philosophers Luigi Stefanini and Enrico Opocher; and doctors like Vincenzo Gallucci, who carried out the first heart transplant in Italy. The new millennium opened with some important new discoveries, particularly in medicine, biomedicine, engineering and aerospace technology. ...view more