IIT is an energetic research environment made by more than 1500 people coming from over 50 different countries. Young, talented and skilled, IIT scientists are committed to develop a multidisciplinary research program, based on the concept of bio-inspiration: technology should mimic nature to be environmentally sustainable and responsive to human needs.
The research model is based on multidisciplinary work teams having transversal skills and being able to enhance at best the combined effort of basic research, applied research and technological transfer. Single research programs are be led by scientists with independent teams and budgets. Neuroscience, genomics and robotics are some of the IIT research lines.
In 2016 Nature Index listed IIT among the best 100 “rising stars” in the world, because of its rapidly growing scientific production on major high impact journals.
IIT coordinates a lot of European-funded projects and 15 researchers are European Research Council (ERC) grantees.
IIT headquarters are in Genova (Italy), while 11 are the IIT research centres distributed over the country, specifically in Turin, Milan, Trento, Rome, Pisa, Naples, Lecce, and Ferrara, and 2 are outstations in the USA, located at MIT and Harvard University.