The University of Naples Federico II was established in 1224 through an Imperial Charter of Frederick II Hohenstaufen, King of Sicily and Holy Roman Emperor. It was the first publicly funded university in Europe.

Nowadays the university offers courses in essentially all academic disciplines, leading to one hundred fiftyfive graduate level degrees. Research facilities provide support to all these courses. Students are given the opportunity to pursue intellectual development as well as the acquisition of professional skills. Current student enrollment nears 86,000 and the academic personnel, at this time, is 2532.

The university is made up of three Schools - the Polytechnical and Basic Sciences School, the School of Medicine and the School of Human and Social Sciences - and 26 Departments which operate as semi independent bodies for the teaching and research management being anyway part of a School.

In addition, the University of Naples Federico II includes a cluster of fourteen highly specialised Museums, covering a wide range of fields, and two botanical gardens hosting unique species.

The central library facility is linked to the division and school libraries; it runs many digital programmes designed to provide free access and the widest possible dissemination of published material to the academic staff. There are seventeen inter-departmental research centres (see organisational chart) open to scholars of all departments and schools and twentyone service and study centres.

The University Federico II has a tradition of promoting and supporting student associations. There are more than fifty student associations currently active, which bring together students, of widely varied cultural and social background. These associations give rise to initiatives and activities of different nature, including sporting events, arts, social and political forums.

The venue of the university has changed many times, over the many centuries of its history (see History). Nowadays, the size of the university is such that its venues are spread throughout the city of Naples and its immediate surroundings. The three major campuses are located in the centre of town, its Northern and Western outskirts. The Senate House and the main administrative offices, along with the Department of Law and Liberal Art are in central Naples; the much newer campuses on the hill of Camaldoli (North) and the Fuorigrotta (West) areas, host the Departments of Medicine, Pharmacy and Biotechnologies and the Departments of Sciences and Economics, respectively.

The School of Medicine includes a large University Hospital, as part of a much larger hospital system, which includes the multi-speciality ‘Cardarelli' Hospital, the largest hospital of Southern Italy the Cancer Institute and the Hospital for Infectious diseases.

The University Federico II is striving to become a world university and, to this end, places the highest priority in nurturing relationships, both within Italy and internationally. Our students are relentlessly encouraged in the pursuit of excellence, at home and abroad. Our staff and students take part in a variety of exchange programmes, within Europe, the Americas and Asia. While promoting cooperation with the more scientifically advanced research institutions of the affluent world, we are making every effort to help the less fortunate. Citizens of Northern Uganda have one doctor out of each 40,000 people: ‘Gulunap' is the interuniversity cooperative project undertaken by the University of Naples Federico II and the School of Medicine of the city of Gulu in Northern Uganda. The project, started in 2004, aims at training doctors for the specific needs of the local communities, first call treatments, promotion of preventive medicine and an integrated therapeutic approach. Four years down the road, the school has nearly twohundred students coming from all over Uganda but also from Kenya, Sudan and Congo.

Cognizant of the changing needs of education and research, the Federico II University of Naples is making every effort to raise its international standings and to become more attractive for international students. Its educational network is being geared towards the establishment of life-long, high level professional training programmes, while maintaining excellence in all fields of education and research.