Scuola Normale Superiore

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The Scuola Normale Superiore is a public institute for higher education that, in its two centuries of life, has earned itself a particular place, both in Italy and abroad, a place characterized by merit, talent, and scientific rigor. Two types, of course, are available: the undergraduate course and the Ph.D. course. The teaching activity is distributed among three academic structures: the Faculty of Humanities, the Faculty of Mathematical and Natural Sciences, placed in Pisa, and the Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences, located in Palazzo Strozzi in Florence.
The Scuola's institutional aim is to promote the development of culture, teaching, and research in the sciences and the humanities. This particular purpose is achieved by exploring the interconnections between these two areas. This vital aim is also obtained through a very high university and post-university education and continuing and systematic training, giving priority to the relationship between education and research. The Scuola's final purpose is to transmit the acquired abilities to the public administration and the world of professions.
The Scuola Normale Superiore is a public university. The Scuola offers both undergraduate and Ph.D. courses.
The undergraduate course, admission to which is by calling, is equivalent to the university degree course and leads to a degree certificate. Teaching is divided between the Scuola Normale, where students attend courses and seminars focussing on the rapid development of an approach to scientific research, with yearly assessments on specific research themes, and the University of Pisa. Students are required to meet the highest standards of academic performance. Their undergraduate career is entirely free of cost: the Scuola Normale fully reimburses all university taxes and provides board and lodging to all normalized as well as an annual study grant.
The Ph.D. course is a post laureate course organized autonomously by the Normale, leading to the title of Philosophiae Doctor. Admission is by call, publications, interviews, and dedicated specialist teaching; it involves developing an original research project aided in part by a network of collaboration with the most important figures of international research. Financial compensation for Ph.D. course students, including a fellowship grant, a mobility allowance, and expense reimbursements, is one of the highest currently offered by the Italian universities.
The traditional study areas are the Humanities (History of Art and Archaeology, Modern and Contemporary Literature, Philosophy, History, and Philology) and Sciences (Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, and Biology). The Ph.D. course includes the study of the social and political sciences.
Collegiate life is the most significant feature of the Scuola: the students live in it they are entitled to a single room in one of the residential colleges (in Pisa the Carducci, Timpano, Fermi and Faedo colleges, and in Florence the Capitini residence), and they can eat in a refectory shared with the professors and researchers. They have free access to the open shelf library, one of the most sizeable of its kind in Europe, and to the laboratory activities they must engage in right from the start of their academic career.
At the Scuola Normale, teachers, researchers, and students live in the same environment, switching between teaching activities and research in the labs and attending the cultural events organized by and within the Scuola. An optimum teacher to student ratio (about 1 to 10), the seminar method of teaching, the prevalence of interaction and discussion within the academic environment, as opposed to more traditional lectures: these are the essential ingredients of the typical college life of the Scuola Normale.

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