Research

SISSA promotes and carries out its research activities in different areas of physics, mathematics and neuroscience, with regard to both basic and applied research. 

The research projects are coordinated by internationally renowned scientists. Some members of the School have received honoris causadegrees in prestigious universities, they were given important prizes or are members of leading scientific academies. SISSA scientists obtain each year substantial international and Italian grants. 

In particular, SISSA ranks in the highest positions among the Italian scientific institutions in terms of awarded ERC grants, especially when considering the small faculty size. The School has received 30 projects since the foundation of the European Research Council in 2007; more than 20% of the current faculty members has received one or more ERC grants.

ERC@SISSA

SISSA is currently involved in six different projects funded by Italia Domani, the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) of European Union's Next Generation EU programme. They include one National Centre, one research infrastructure, one innovation ecosystem and three wide partnerships.

PNRR@SISSA

The excellence of SISSA research is also certified by the quantity and quality of scientific products, such as publications in leading international journals with a high number of citations and invitations to the most prestigious international conferences/scientific institutions. Since they are the basis of its success, multidisciplinary initiatives will remain as the central feature of the School for future developments.

The operational structure of the School is based on a small number of professors/scientists each of which is a Principal Investigator (PI), which carries out her/his independent research in collaboration with young post docs and PhD students.

SISSA is open to international collaborations and has scientific agreements with more than a hundred of institutions. In addition 10% of the permanent staff, 50% of the post-docs and 33% of the PhD students come from other countries.

Our scientific personnel spent long periods in universities or research institutes abroad, with whom they maintain close scientific relations and very often they are part of several international collaborations (e.g. MATPYL, GEANPYL-II, IRSES, UTFit, ETMC, Planck, CECAM, PIRE, COMPSTAR, VESF - Virgo/EGO Scientific Forum, Ebex, Euclid, Magic, Agile, Fermi). Recently, MathLab, a new laboratory for mathematical modeling and scientific computing, started its activity, aimed at developing innovative solutions to meet the needs of industrial, business and health sectors. To promote new methods and scientific applications of numerical simulations, as well as to implement innovative projects in high performance scientific computing, SISSA collaborates with DEMOCRITOS, the National Simulation Center of the Italian National Research Council (CNR). SISSA is also one of the partners of the Italian National Institutes of Nuclear Physics (INFN) in carrying out scientific research and organizing international conferences and workshop.