The University of Messina was founded in 1548 by Pope Paul III, closed in 1678 following the anti-Spanish revolt, and refunded in 1838 by the King of the Two Sicilies, Ferdinand II. After the nearly total devastation caused by the 1908 earthquake, the university quickly regained vitality. The educational and scientific structures destroyed were rebuilt, and new large facilities emerged in various areas of the Messina territory, in a process of rapid expansion, both in terms of the number of students and teachers, and in terms of educational offerings and research activities. Today, the University of Messina is divided into four major hubs distributed in different areas of the urban Messina area and is characterized by the quality of research and teaching, articulated in numerous degree courses, both bachelor’s and master’s, as well as doctoral and postgraduate specialization programs. The educational offerings are constantly updated to adequately respond to the demands of the job market and the needs of students, especially those from the Sicilian-Calabrian area. Furthermore, the University of Messina promotes, maintains, and develops intense collaboration and cultural exchanges with more than forty foreign universities, perpetuating, through a continuous process of internationalization, the cosmopolitan tradition of the city of Messina, founded in the center of the Mediterranean by the Greeks around 756 B.C. and historically a privileged place of meeting and exchange between diverse cultures.
The educational and research activities of the University of Messina in the field of electrical energy are concentrated in the Department of Engineering, which originates from the Faculty of Engineering, founded in 1990 and whose structure was inaugurated in 2005. The educational offerings of the Department of Engineering are articulated into six bachelor’s degree courses (Civil and Building Systems Engineering, Electronic and Computer Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Management Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, Navigation Sciences and Technologies), seven master’s degree courses (Civil Engineering, Engineering and Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, Electronics Engineering for Industry, Management Engineering, Biomedical Engineering and Maritime and Air Transport Sciences and Logistics), and two doctoral programs. The Department of Engineering includes about one hundred researchers and professors, with internationally renowned scientific production and a wide range of national and international collaborations, as well as constant relationships with the territory. In particular, in the fields of power electronic systems and electric drives, the research activities accomplished at the Department of Engineering concern: control of electric drives, renewable energy generation systems, energy storage systems for stationary and automotive applications, electric propulsion, wide bandgap power electronic devices, switching converters for industrial applications, and electric and hybrid powertrains for automotive applications. The laboratories of the Department of Engineering are equipped with the necessary instrumentation to carry out:
- Testing of converters for distributed generation from renewable sources.
- Prototyping, realization, and experimental testing of control systems for electric motors in industrial and automotive applications.
- Prototyping, realization, and experimental testing of static power converters.
- Study of reliability and estimation of the lifetime of power electronic devices in industrial, distributed generation, and automotive applications.
- Prototyping, realization, and experimental testing of systems for energy harvesting from thermal and mechanical energy waste.
- Experimental testing of microgrids for naval applications.
