Ca' Foscari University of Venice ( it, Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, simply Università Ca' Foscari) is a

public university A public university or public college is a university or college that is in state ownership, owned by the state or receives significant government spending, public funds through a national or subnational government, as opposed to a private unive ...

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...

, Italy. Since its foundation in 1868, it has been housed in the

Venetian Gothic Venetian Gothic is the particular form of Italian Gothic architecture typical of Venice, originating in local building requirements, with some influence from Byzantine architecture, and some from Islamic architecture, reflecting Venice's trading ...

palace of Ca' Foscari, from which it takes its name. The palace stands on the Grand Canal, between the

Rialto The Rialto is a central area of Venice, Italy, in the ''sestiere'' of San Polo. It is, and has been for many centuries, the financial and commercial heart of the city. Rialto is known for its prominent markets as well as for the monumental Ria ...

and

San Marco San Marco is one of the six sestieri of Venice, lying in the heart of the city as the main place of Venice. San Marco also includes the island of San Giorgio Maggiore. Although the district includes Saint Mark's Square, that was never admin ...

, in the

sestiere A (plural: ) is a subdivision of certain Italian towns and cities. The word is from (‘sixth’), so it is thus used only for towns divided into six districts. The best-known example is the ''sestieri'' of Venice, but Ascoli Piceno, Genoa, Mi ...

of Dorsoduro. Ca' Foscari became a full-fledged university in 1968. It currently has eight departments and almost 21,000 students. Ca' Foscari's teaching and research is centred around economics & business,

humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at the t ...

, and

modern language A modern language is any human language that is currently in use. The term is used in language education to distinguish between languages which are used for day-to-day communication (such as French and German) and dead classical languages such a ...

s. In 2017 Ca' Foscari's economics department was ranked as Italy's 3rd best, surpassed by

University of Bologna The University of Bologna ( it, Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna, UNIBO) is a public research university in Bologna, Italy. Founded in 1088 by an organised guild of students (''studiorum''), it is the oldest university in continu ...

and

University of Padua The University of Padua ( it, Università degli Studi di Padova, UNIPD) is an Italian university located in the city of Padua, region of Veneto, northern Italy. The University of Padua was founded in 1222 by a group of students and teachers from ...

, while it in general ranked of 5th out of 89 universities.

History

Università Ca' Foscari Venezia San Giobbe

Ca' Foscari was founded as the "Regia Scuola Superiore di Commercio" (Royal High School of Commerce) by a Royal Decree dated 6 August 1868, and teaching commenced in December of the same year. The idea of establishing such a school had arisen after the annexation of the

Veneto it, Veneto (man) it, Veneta (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = ...

to the new

Kingdom of Italy The Kingdom of Italy ( it, Regno d'Italia) was a state that existed from 1861, when Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia was proclaimed King of Italy, until 1946, when civil discontent led to an institutional referendum to abandon the monarchy and f ...

in 1866, and was promoted by three people in particular: the Jewish

political economist Political economy is the study of how economic systems (e.g. markets and national economies) and political systems (e.g. law, institutions, government) are linked. Widely studied phenomena within the discipline are systems such as labour m ...

Luigi Luzzatti Luigi Luzzatti (11 March 1841 – 29 March 1927) was an Italian financier, political economist, social philosopher, and jurist. He served as the 20th prime minister of Italy between 1910 and 1911. Luzzatti came from a wealthy and cultured Jewis ...

, later

Prime Minister of Italy The Prime Minister of Italy, officially the President of the Council of Ministers ( it, link=no, Presidente del Consiglio dei Ministri), is the head of government of the Italian Republic. The office of president of the Council of Ministers is ...

; Edoardo Deodati, senator of the Kingdom of Italy and vice-president of the

province of Venice The Province of Venice (''Provincia di Venezia'') was a province in the Veneto region of northern Italy. Its capital was the city of Venice. It had an area of 2,467 km2, and a total population of 846,962 (2011). The province became the Met ...

; and the Sicilian political economist

Francesco Ferrara Francesco Ferrara (1810–1900) was an Italian economist, and political scientist. He helped introduce the classical economic theories of Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and J. S. Mill John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 – 7 May 1873) was an Eng ...

, director of the school for its first thirty years. The school was - and today the university is - the first and most prestigious institute of higher education in

commerce Commerce is the large-scale organized system of activities, functions, procedures and institutions directly and indirectly related to the exchange (buying and selling) of goods and services among two or more parties within local, regional, nation ...

in Italy, and was from the outset conceived as a national and international institution rather than a regional one. Ca' Foscari aimed at the education of top managers, economists, bankers, statesmen and entrepreneurs. It also had a diplomatic section to train and educate Diplomats and commercial consular staff for overseas service and international law. In addition, Ca' Foscari was also created to operate as a training college for secondary school teachers of commercial subjects. Foreign languages were taught from the start as well as the study of foreign cultures. The school was modelled on the Institut Supérieur de Commerce d'Anvers, founded in 1853 in Antwerp,

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

Università Ca' Foscari Venezia San Sebastiano

Following the establishment of a national syllabus for university teaching in 1935, the Istituto Superiore di Economia e Commercio di Venezia, as it was by then called, was authorised to award four-year ''laurea'' degrees. In 1968 it obtained university status, and the name was changed to Università degli Studi di Venezia. In the following year two new faculties were created, of

industrial chemistry The chemical industry comprises the companies that produce industrial chemicals. Central to the modern world economy, it converts raw materials (oil, natural gas, air, water, metals, and minerals) into more than 70,000 different products. The pla ...

and of philosophy and letters. Currently, Ca' Foscari hosts eight strategic research centers: the Center for Cultural Heritage and Technology, the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change, the European Centre for Living Technology, th
Center for Humanities and Social Change
th
Institute for Global Challenges
th
Marco Polo Centre
th
Venice Centre for Digital and Public Humanities
and th
Venice Centre in Economic and Risk Analytics for Public Policies

Organisation

The university is divided into eight departments: * Economics * Philosophy and cultural heritage * Management * Environmental science, computer science and statistics * Molecular science and nanosystems * Linguistic and comparative cultural studies * Humanities * Asian and Mediterranean African studies It also hosts the European Centre for Living Technology.

Corporate placement and campus drive

Ca' Foscari provides vide network of corporate placement opportunities for its students and recently collaborated internationally for exploring students dynamics for international experience. The first Indian collaboration happened in December 2021 with TreeAndHumanKnot RisingIndia ThinkTank.

Rankings

Ca' Foscari is ranked among the best universities in Italy, ranking 5th in 2017 out of 89 universities. The QS World University Ranking by subject has placed Ca’ Foscari of Venice among the top 100 universities in the world for modern languages, among the top 150 in the world for humanities, and among the top 200 in the world for economics and management. The university also ranked as the third best public university in Italy for their quality of research according to

ANVUR ANVUR (Agenzia Nazionale di Valutazione del Sistema Universitario e della Ricerca) is the Italian National Agency for the Evaluation of the University and Research Systems. ANVUR was established by a 2006 law with the objective of improving meritoc ...

(the National Agency for the Evaluation of University Research Systems) in 2018.

Nobel prize-winner lectures

In 2018 six recipients of the

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

gave lectures at the university: Robert F. Engle, Martin Karplus,

Mario Vargas Llosa Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquess of Vargas Llosa (born 28 March 1936), more commonly known as Mario Vargas Llosa (, ), is a Peruvian novelist, journalist, essayist and former politician, who also holds Spanish citizenship. Vargas Ll ...

Robert C. Merton Robert Cox Merton (born July 31, 1944) is an American economist, Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences laureate, and professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, known for his pioneering contributions to continuous-time finance, especia ...

Amartya Sen Amartya Kumar Sen (; born 3 November 1933) is an Indian economist and philosopher, who since 1972 has taught and worked in the United Kingdom and the United States. Sen has made contributions to welfare economics, social choice theory, econom ...

Wole Soyinka Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka (Yoruba: ''Akínwándé Olúwọlé Babátúndé Ṣóyíinká''; born 13 July 1934), known as Wole Soyinka (), is a Nigerian playwright, novelist, poet, and essayist in the English language. He was awarded t ...

and

Muhammad Yunus Muhammad Yunus (born 28 June 1940) is a Bangladeshi social entrepreneur, banker, economist and civil society leader who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for founding the Grameen Bank and pioneering the concepts of microcredit and microfinance ...

Notable alumni

Among the alumni of the university are: * Giuseppe De'Longhi, businessman *Enrico Dallavecchia, businessman * San Servolo (lagune de Venise) (3752627217)

San Servolo (lagune de Venise) (3752627217)

Roberto Meneguzzo, banker and investor *

Renzo Rosso Renzo Rosso (born September 15, 1955) is an Italian fashion entrepreneur and businessman. He is the founder of Diesel and the president of OTB Group, the parent company of Maison Margiela, Marni, Viktor & Rolf, Jil Sander, and more. In 2022, Fo ...

, businessman, founder of the clothing brand Diesel * Michele Boldrin, economist * Paolo Costa, economist and politician * Carlo Carraro, economist and Ca' Foscari's president between 2009 and 2014 *

Ugo La Malfa Ugo La Malfa (16 May 1903 – 26 March 1979) was an Italian politician and an important leader of the Italian Republican Party (''Partito Repubblicano Italiano''; PRI). Early years and anti-fascist resistance La Malfa was born in Palermo, Sic ...

, politician *

Flaminio Piccoli Flaminio Piccoli ( Kirchbichl, 28 December 1915 – Rome, 11 April 2000) was an Italian politician. He was a member of Christian Democracy until its dissolution in 1994, then a member of the United Christian Democrats and finally of the R ...

, politician * Lilli Gruber, politician, author, journalist and TV-personality * Barbara Frale, historian * Lionello Perera, banker, patron of the arts *

Paul Watzlawick Paul Watzlawick (July 25, 1921 – March 31, 2007) was an Austrian-American family therapist, psychologist, communication theorist, and philosopher. A theoretician in communication theory and radical constructivism, he commented in the fields ...

, philosopher and psychologist * Damiano Michieletto, opera director *

Massimiliano Frani Massimiliano Frani (born 10 January 1967 in Venice, Italy) is an Italian pianist, composer and music pedagogue. He is the founder of the project MET – Music Education Therapy and director of the Armoniæ Centro Internazionale di Musica e Cultura. ...

, pianist

References

{{commons category, Università Ca' Foscari 1868 establishments in Italy Education in Venice Educational institutions established in 1868