The International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA), founded in 1978 and the first institution in Italy to promote post-graduate courses to achieve a Doctor Philosophiae (or PhD) degree, is a centre of excellence in the Italian and international university context. It encompasses around 65 teachers, 100 post docs and 245 PhD students, and is located in Trieste, in an over 100,000 square-metre large campus with a wonderful view on the Gulf of Trieste.

Established as a high-level training school and as a centre for theoretical research in mathematics and physics, in the 1990s SISSA broadened its interests to include new cutting-edge disciplines, such as cognitive neuroscience and neurobiology. Today its PhD courses provide new and innovative post-graduate curricula, and SISSA is considered a reference model in the international scientific scenario under every respect, comparable to few other research and teaching institutes worldwide.

SISSA hosts a very high-ranking, large and multidisciplinary scientific production. All scientific papers produced by its researchers are published in high impact factor, well-known international journals, and in many cases in the world's most prestigious scientific journals such as Nature and Science. Over 900 students have so far started their careers in the field of mathematics, physics and neuroscience research at SISSA.