Host Institutions
The Federico II University of Naples is the third largest university in Italy (after Rome "La Sapienza" and Bologna), and the world's oldest public university. Founded in 1224 by Emperor Frederick II the Swabian, it was the first university in the world to be structured in faculties (‘Facultates’), which were originally four: law, theology, medicine, liberal arts. The tradition of the Neapolitan schools of philosophy and jurisprudence survived to the centuries. The surprisingly modern attitude of King Frederick toward natural sciences, in turn, represented a precious legacy, which found world-famous expressions in the ‘Stazione Zoologica’, an institute for biological studies on the new theory of Evolutionism, established in 1873 by the German scientist Anton Dohrn (who had a long correspondence with Charles Darwin), and the complex of Institutes on Earth sciences (chemistry, mineralogy, geology, palaeontology, geophysics) studying and monitoring in particular, since the beginning of last century, the belt of active volcanoes which surround the bay of Naples.
The Department of Chemical Sciences (originating from the merger of the ‘Paolo Corradini’ Department of Chemistry and the Department of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry in 2012) is the third largest of the ‘Federico II’ University, and the one with the highest ranking within the Faculty of Science, based on national and international classifications (in particular, it is included in the Top European Group in Chemistry, according to the December 2007 report of the Centre for Higher Education Development titled ‘Identifying the Best: The CHE Ranking of Excellent European Graduate Programmes in the Natural Sciences and Mathematics’; www.che.de; ISSN 1862-7188, ISBN 978-3-939589-62-4).
Relocated in the year 2000 to the new site of the Faculty of Science in the neighborhood of Fuorigrotta, the Department operates in a modern and well-equipped structure with a total surface of ca. 11500 m2, of which more than 50% is lab space. It counts approximately 90 staff members, over 700 BS and MS students in Chemistry and Industrial Chemistry, and is home to a PhD School of Chemical Sciences.