Back to Motor Valley Website

The University of Udine was established—uniquely in Italy—through popular initiative. Founded in 1978, in just over forty years it has gained significant recognition at national, European, and international levels.

Its mission is based on four pillars: higher education, research and technology transfer, interaction with the local area, and internationalization, fostering a constant exchange of knowledge and new ideas with the local economy and society at large.
Encounters, exchanges, and cross-pollination are the key to understanding the role that the University of Friuli plays within a region that has always been a crossroads of different worlds and cultures, geographically located at the heart of Europe.
Today, the University of Udine has over fifteen thousand students, more than six hundred faculty members, and around five hundred technical and administrative staff. It comprises eight departments.

The degree programs, coordinated by the departments, number around eighty in total and are divided into four areas: economics and law, medicine, science, and humanities and education. About fifteen of these are international programs offering double degrees, involving European countries as well as North and South American states.

The University also hosts the Scuola Superiore, a center of excellence that complements regular university studies with parallel, highly qualified interdisciplinary training programs.
There are around twenty specialization schools, and more than ten PhD programs. The University offers first- and second-level master’s degrees, along with executive courses aimed at updating and developing professional skills, across four thematic areas: management and law; medical and health; science and technology; humanities, communication, and education.