The Politecnico di Bari is one of the three Italian public polytechnic universities of a scientific technological nature. It is located in Southern Italy and this position not only makes it very comfortable for the excellent climatic conditions and the natural environment, but also for the enviable position that makes Bari the gateway to Mediterranean and Asian countries, encouraging cultural, commercial, and industrial exchanges. Furthermore, it is located in Puglia, an important strategic hub to produce energy from conventional and renewable sources and is involved in numerous innovation projects in the field of smart grids and applications for energy systems. The mission of the Politecnico di Bari is to support cultural, scientific, and technological progress by forming engineers, architects, and experts in Industrial Design, carrying out scientific and technological research activities as well as know-how transferring and technical solutions to innovative companies.
The Politecnico di Bari collaborates with researchers, experts, other universities, research centers and institutes, public and private organizations, and national and international industrial partners, and encourages the implementation of collaboration programs with international organizations, in particular with the European Union, promotes and encourages international exchanges of Professors, Researchers, graduates, students and technical-administrative staff. Cooperation with the local industrial sector and technological transfer is ensured by the presence of spin-offs (around 20) and by direct participation in industrial districts such as the H-BIO (Regional District for Public Health and Biotechnology), the MEDIS (Regional District for Mechatronics), DHITECH (Regional District for High Tech) and DITNE (National Technological District for Energy).
The teaching staff includes approximately 235 tenured teachers responsible for both educational and research activities. Research activities are also carried out by other non-tenured academic staff (research fellows, post-docs and fixed-term researchers). Many laboratories are present for carrying out research in all areas of engineering. Two test facilities for experimentation on smart grids and rapid prototyping of electrical components are available at the laboratories called LabZERO and PRINCE. More than 2850 new students enroll every year, and currently the Politecnico di Bari has a total of over 10000 students of which approximately 130 of them are students from European countries. Other international students (mainly Ph.D.) come from non-European countries. The courses offered include 10 bachelor’s degree courses (3 years), 11 master’s degree courses (2 years – to be completed after the bachelor’s degree) and 1 single cycle master’s degree course (5 years). It is also possible to specialize further with the 1st and 2nd level master degrees (after having obtained the bachelor’s degree and the master’s degree, respectively) or by following one of the PhD programs available. Each course is offered to a specific department among those present: Department of Electrical and Information Engineering (DEI), Department of Mechanics, Mathematics and Management (DMMM), Department of Civil, Environmental, Territorial, Construction and Chemistry Engineering (DICATECh), Inter-University Department of Physics “Michelangelo Merlin” and finally Department of Architecture, Construction and Design (ArCoD).
