The Polytechnic University of Milan (Italian: Politecnico di Milano, abbreviated as Polimi) is the largest public technical university in Italy, with about 40,000 enrolled students. The university offers undergraduate, graduate, and higher education courses in engineering, architecture and design.
Established in 1863 by Francesco Brioschi, the Politecnico di Milano is the oldest university in Milan; inspired by German and Swiss polytechnics, Brioschi founded the school in the hope of bettering Italy's scientific and technological progress. By the 20th century, the school had gained international recognition thanks to its influential faculty and a strong emphasis on largely modernist principles.
The university is made up of two central campuses in Milan, the Bovisa and Leonardo, where the majority of the research and teaching activities are located, as well as other satellite campuses in five other cities across Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna. The university’s central offices and headquarters are located in Città Studi’s Leonardo Campus, active since 1927.
Since its foundation, the Politecnico di Milano provides a diverse selection of graduate programs. Of its 40,000 students, about 8,000 are international from more than 100 countries. The university also has established partnerships with several other institutions around the world, including ETH Zurich, TU Delft, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As of 2024, the Politecnico di Milano had an acceptance rate of 28%.
The Politecnico di Milano is considered one of the leading technical universities in Italy and in Europe, and is consistently ranked as one of the best schools for architecture, design and engineering in the world. According to the QS World University Rankings for the subject area 'Engineering & Technology', it ranked in 2026 as the 20th best in the world; It also ranked 6th for architecture, 7th worldwide for design, 14th for civil and structural engineering and 14th for mechanical and aerospace engineering. In 2024, SCImago Institutions Rankings listed the school 6th for architecture and amongst the top fifty schools for engineering in the world.
Some of the most notable alumni and professors from the school include Nobel laureate Giulio Natta, engineer, inventor, and aeronautical pioneer Enrico Forlanini, astrophysicist Amalia Ercoli Finzi, novelist Carlo Emilio Gadda, musician Demetrio Stratos, and architects Renzo Piano and Aldo Rossi.
History +List of rectors of the Politecnico di Milano RectorTenure Francesco Brioschi (1824—1897)1863—1897 Giuseppe Colombo (1836—1921)1897—1921 Cesare Saldini (1848—1922)1921—1922 Luigi Zunini (1856—1938)1922—1926 Gaudenzio Fantoli (1867—1940)1926—1940 Carlo Isnardo Azimonti (1876—1943)1940—1943 Gino Cassinis (1885—1964)1944—1960 Gino Bozza (1899—1967)1960—1967 Bruno Finzi (1899—1974)1967—1969 Francesco Carassa (1922—2006)1969—1972 Luigi Dadda (1923—2012)1972—1984 Arrigo Vallatta (1930—2001)1984—1987 Emilio Massa (1926—1998)1987—1994 Adriano De Maio (b. 1941)1994—2002 Giulio Ballio (b. 1940)2002—2010 Giovanni Azzone (b. 1962)2010—2016 Ferruccio Resta (b. 1968)2017—2022 Donatella Sciuto (b. 1962)2022—current The Politecnico di Milano was founded on 29 November 1863 by Francesco Brioschi, secretary of the Ministry of Education and rector of the University of Pavia. Its establishment was part of a broader movement in Italy to advance technical and scientific education, which in result would support industrial and technological development during the country's early years of unification.
Its original name was Istituto Tecnico Superiore (which translates to "Higher Technical Institute") and only Civil and Industrial Engineering were taught. Architecture, the second main line of study at the university, was introduced in 1865 in cooperation with the Brera Academy. There were only 30 students admitted in the first year. Over the decades, most of the students were men: the first female graduate from the university was in 1913. In 1927 the university moved to piazza Leonardo da Vinci, in the district now known as Città studi (City of Studies), where the university's main facilities are still today. At the time, it was named Regio Politecnico ("Royal Polytechnic"). The word Regio was removed as Italy was proclaimed a republic at the end of World War II. The historical building still in use today was designed and built by engineers and architects all graduated from the university itself.
The present logo, based on a detail of the preparatory sketch of Raphael's School of Athens, was adopted in 1942. Until then, there was no official logo for the institution.
In 1954, the first European centre of electronic computation was opened at the university by Gino Cassinis and Ercole Bottani. In 1963 Giulio Natta received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his research on crystalline polymers, polypropylene in particular. In 1977, the satellite Sirio, jointly developed by the university and other companies, was launched. In 1979, POLIMI Graduate School of Management, the Polytechnic's business school has been created.
Since the end of the 1980s, the university has begun a process of territorial expansion that would have resulted in the opening of its satellite campuses in Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna. A university program in industrial design was started in 1993. In 2000, the university's faculty of design was created with new courses in undergraduate and postgraduate programs of graphic & visual, fashion and interior design along with the already existent industrial design.
In April 2012, the university announced that, beginning in 2014, all graduate courses would be taught only in English.Michael Day, "Italian university switches to English" The Independent 14 April 2012 This decision was then partially revised, after the decision of the Italian Supreme Court, that stated the Italian language could not be totally abolished nor downgraded to a marginal role.Politecnico, la Consulta: "Sì ai corsi solo in inglese, ma l'italiano non deve sparire" Il Giorno 24 February 2017[IT] On the 7th of September 2019, XJTU-POLIMI Joint School has been opened in Xi'an, China, which is a joint school of Polytechnic University of Milan and Xi'an Jiaotong University.
Campuses
The University is spread over seven campuses: two main campuses in Milan and another three satellite campuses across Lombardy (Lecco, Cremona, Mantua) and one Emilia-Romagna (Piacenza). Milan Leonardo Milan Leonardo is the oldest of the university's campuses still in use. The first buildings on Piazza Leonardo da Vinci were inaugurated in 1927. Over the years, the complex has been expanded and is now generally referred to as "Città Studi", City of Studies, which also refers to some faculties of the University of Milan in the same area. The campus extends over several streets: Leonardo, Bonardi, Clericetti, Mancinelli, Gran Sasso and Colombo. The Leonardo Campus is the main campus of the university and comprises the central administration offices, the rectorate, and most of the research departments. Milan Bovisa The Milan Bovisa campus is located in the Bovisa district of Milan and became active in 1989; campus Bovisa is today composed of campus Durando, opened in 1994, and campus La Masa, inaugurated in 1997. The first is the seat of the School of Design, while the second is dedicated to Industrial, Mechanical, Aerospace, and Energy Engineering faculties. Bovisa also houses the related research facilities, including the wind tunnel.
Other campuses The first satellite campuses opened in 1987 in Como and in 1989 in Lecco. During the 1990s, three other branches opened in Cremona (1991), Mantua (1994), and Piacenza (1997). These last three branches are currently open. On the 7th of September 2019, XJTU-POLIMI Joint School has been opened in Xi'an, China, which is a joint school of Polytechnic University of Milan and Xi'an Jiaotong University.
Academics The Politecnico di Milano offers several three-year undergraduate courses, two-year graduate courses, one-year master courses and PhD programs in the fields of engineering, architecture and design. The university offers 32 first level (Bachelor) degree programs.
The academic year is divided into two terms, or semesters, the first from mid-September to late January and the second from March to late June. There are 3 exam sessions: those at the end of each semester (in February and July) and one more in September. Students need to achieve 60 "university credits" (CFU or Crediti Formativi Universitari) per year during their Bachelor's and master's degrees. Therefore, the 3-years Bachelor requires 180 credits while the 2-years Master 120. The university, like most universities in Italy, is organized to comply with the framework of the Bologna Process.
The university maintains several relations with foreign universities and offers a wide range of international projects for student exchange, The university encourages the enrollment of foreign students by providing several courses in English, German and Spanish. It participates in the ENTREE network for student exchange among Electrical Engineering colleges in Europe and it is a member of Top Industrial Managers for Europe (TIME) network.
The Alta Scuola Politecnica is a joint institution of the Politecnico di Milano and Polytechnic University of Turin addressed to young talents who want to develop their interdisciplinary capabilities for leading and promoting innovation, and runs in parallel to the two-year programs of laurea magistrale (graduate courses).
International opportunities The university offers several opportunities for students that want to integrate their studies with an experience outside Italy.
Some of them are:
ATHENS Programme ERASMUS Programme Erasmus Mundus Programme Master of European Design Partnership of a European Group of Aeronautics and Space Universities UNITECH International Global Engineering Education Exchange
PhD students may also take advantage of "Progetto Rocca MIT-PoliMi Program", an international program that allows them to spend a visit period working at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Rankings
According to the QS World University Rankings, the university is ranked as 87th overall in the world, the first Italian university in this ranking. By field of study, it is ranked 7th for Design, 6th for Architecture, and 20th for Engineering and Technology. More specifically, it was also ranked as the 14th best university in the world regarding civil and structural engineering topics. The SCImago Institutions Rankings listed the school 5th for Architecture and amongst the top 50 in Engineering in 2026. As for Italian national rankings, the university was ranked the best university for Engineering and among the top big universities in Italy in the CENSIS-Repubblica Italian University rankings for the academic year 2011–2012. In 2009, an Italian research ranked it as the best in Italy over indicators such as scientific production, the attraction of foreign students, and others.
Admission
Engineering The admission in the undergraduate program in engineering at the university is bound to an admission test, aimed to verify the starting preparation of every student. The main goal of this test is to point out the lacks of aspiring students and, in case, to assign them an extra course. Only some programs have a strictly limited number of places, even if the Academic Senate fixes an approximate maximum number of students for every program. The admission test for any Engineering school, except Construction Engineering, is divided in four parts, each about one of the following general subject: English Language; Logic, Mathematics and Statistics; Verbal Comprehension; Physics.
Architecture, Design and Construction Engineering