Department of Science and Advanced Technology - DISAT

The Department of Science and High Technology was established in 2011 through the merger of three departments (the Department of Physics and Mathematics, the Department of Chemical and Environmental Sciences, and the Department of Environment, Health and Safety), a genuine challenge that succeeded in bringing together the hard sciences and the applied sphere under one roof.

At DiSAT, fundamental research is combined with applied research, enriching the hard sciences with contributions from other disciplines, promoting interdisciplinary research, and educating students with a fully rounded scientific outlook.

The Department has become a shared home for collaboration and synergy, where fundamental research across the various disciplines serves as a springboard for studying and improving the local area, addressing energy issues, fostering technological innovation, and supporting the creation of high value-added enterprises. This choice has enabled us to benefit from economies of scale usually possible only in large universities, without, however, losing the agility of a more compact structure.

The Department’s vision and mission may be summarised as follows: 

Vision - To play a leading role in shaping the future

Mission - To educate tomorrow’s scientists through innovative teaching and cutting-edge research, becoming a point of reference for the local area

At DiSAT, 79 lecturers/researchers carry out teaching and research activities and are distributed across several MUR scientific areas, namely: Area 01 (mathematical and computer sciences), 02 (physical sciences), and 03 (chemical sciences), which are the most strongly represented numerically, as well as Areas 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09 and 13 (earth sciences, biological sciences, medical sciences, agricultural and veterinary sciences, civil engineering, industrial and information engineering, and economic and statistical sciences).

The Department is organised into four Sections:

Environment-Health-Safety-Territory Section -  Coordinator: Prof. Domenico Cavallo 
Chemistry Section - Coordinator: Prof. Gianluigi Broggini 
Physics Section - Coordinator: Prof. Francesco Haardt (replaced by Prof. Alberto Parola, as he is on sabbatical) 
Mathematics Section - Coordinator: Prof. Alberto Setti 
 

DiSAT is the home department for eight Bachelor’s and Master’s degree programmes:

• Bachelor’s degree programmes in Chemistry and Industrial Chemistry, Physics, Engineering for Workplace and Environmental Safety, and Mathematics.
• 
  Master’s degree programmes in Chemistry, Physics (taught in English; double degree with Linnaeus University in Kalmar/Växjö, Sweden), Mathematics (taught in English; double degree with Linnaeus University in Kalmar/Växjö, Sweden, and with the University of Italian Switzerland), and Environmental Sciences.

As regards third-cycle education, the Department is associated with three PhD programmes: Chemical and Environmental Sciences (in collaboration with the Department of Theoretical and Applied Sciences – DiSTA); Physics and Astrophysics; and Computer Science and Computational Mathematics (in collaboration with DiSTA).

The Third Mission, understood as the ability to play a key role in stimulating and guiding the use of knowledge for social, cultural and economic development, has always been one of DiSAT’s core objectives. On the one hand, the Department plays a leading role both in technology transfer (through the production of patents) and in academic entrepreneurship (through the creation of spin-offs); on the other, it has developed a remarkable capacity to engage society in a fully rounded way, not only by transferring results and information (and helping to prevent misinformation), but also by laying the foundations for a relationship of trust between the University and society itself, within a process of dialogue for mutual benefit.

The Department has invested in its Quality Assurance policy, identifying it as a key element for continuous improvement across all three of its main areas of activity (teaching, research and Third Mission), through the AIQua Committees, which monitor quality processes within the degree programmes, and the AIQua-R Committee, which is responsible for the continuous monitoring and evaluation of research and Third Mission activities. The Director is also supported by delegates with responsibility for specific areas (internationalisation, student guidance and research).