Law No. 232 of 11 December 2016 established the “Fund for Financing University Departments of Excellence”, with an annual budget of Euro 271 million.

The aim is to “encourage the activities of the Departments of state universities that stand out for the excellent quality of their research and scientific, organisational and educational planning, as well as with reference to the research goals of Industry 4.0”.

ANVUR drafted a preliminary ranking of the best 350 Departments of Italian state universities in accordance with applicable regulations. Each Department was invited to submit a five-year Department Development Project, accompanied by a financial programme.

The projects were submitted to the evaluation of a Commission made up of seven members. By combining the ISPD (Indicatore Standardizzato di Performance Dipartimentale - Standardised Departmental Performance Indicator) score with the evaluation of the projects, the Commission drew up the final ranking of the 180 Italian Departments of Excellence.