General description

About us

CNIT (National, Inter-University Consortium for Telecommunications, www.cnit.it) is a non-profit consortium, established in 1995, bringing together 42 public Italian universities to perform research, innovation and education/training activities in the field of the Information and Communication Technology.

CNIT operates 50 Research Units, one for each member university, plus eight other units belonging to institutes of the National Research Council (CNR, the largest public research institution in Italy) that reached a cooperation agreement with CNIT. CNIT also operates eight National Laboratories: Photonic Networks & Technologies (located in Pisa); Radar & Surveillance Systems (located in Pisa); Multimedia Communications (located in Napoli); Smart, Sustainable and Secure Internet Technologies and Infrastructures (located in Genova); Wireless Communications (located in Bologna/Cesena/Ferrara); Network Assessment, Assurance and Monitoring (located in Rome); Context – Oriented Networking (located in Catania/Cosenza/Palermo/Reggio Calabria). More than 1,300 professors and researchers, belonging to the member universities, collaborate within CNIT, together with more than 75 CNIT own employees. CNIT participated in hundreds of research projects, including EU coordinated projects, ERC grants and Italian nation-wide initiatives. In H2020 European program the CNIT has obtained 61 projects and coordinated 15 of them, while in HORIZON EUROPE the CNIT has obtained 24 projects and coordinated 9 of them. CNIT has also a significant experience in the organization of scientific events and conferences.

The innovation and technology transfer of research results towards end-users and industry is a primary mission for CNIT. CNIT also promotes the collaboration between member universities and other educational institutes as well as technical and scientific collaborations with national and international research institutes and industries.

CNIT is active in many aspects related to 5G: i) participates in and coordinates various EU H2020 projects on 5G; four of these projects ranked first in their respective rankings; ii) was elected member of the 5GPPP (https://5g-ppp.eu/); iii) takes part in the ministerial 5G experimentation in the Milan metropolitan area; iv) participates in EU H2020 projects on 5G applications, including autonomous vehicles and intelligent transport systems.

General description

CNIT brings together 42 public Italian universities active in the general area of ICT, for which it represents a support structure in the execution of their institutional research and training activities in the field of telecommunications and electromagnetism.

CNIT was established in 1995. The Director is Prof. Francesco De Natale, University of Trento, while the President is Prof. Nicola Blefari Melazzi, University of Rome Tor Vergata.

The Consortium has the statutory purpose of promoting basic and applied research in the various fields of ICT, coordinating activities among the member universities with particular attention to the definition, promotion and implementation of innovative projects of significant size. In addition to fostering collaboration between member universities, it promotes technical and scientific collaborations of the university system, in the field of relevance, with other research institutions, in particular the National Research Council, and with national and multinational industries.

It carries out a concerted action to provide opportunities for professional growth for the design, implementation and management of ICT devices, systems and services, with particular regard to telecommunications and electromagnetism, enhancing interdisciplinary aspects and in accordance with both national and international research programs, through the awarding of annual scholarships for young graduates to be used at the member universities.

In the field of research training, always starting from a university perspective, the CNIT operates towards the training of PhDs and the preparation of expert researchers, through the granting of PhD scholarships at the member universities and the offer of material didactic in English to the same universities by telematic means.

CNIT is organized in operative structures, namely Research Units (RU) and National Labs (NL). The RUs are normally constituted in the member universities with a convention act which rules the RU inside the hosting Department. Each RU can include both university personnel, CNIT employees and scholarship students.

The NLs are structures owned and managed directly by CNIT and play an intensive research activity (design and implementation areas) on a national and international basis.

CNIT aims to

  • promote and coordinate basic and applied research for the solutions of practical engineering problems;
  • develop partnerships among industries, operators, public and private research centers;
  • provide research post-graduate fellowships;
  • stimulate initiatives of scientific divulgation.

Research areas

  • Wireless communications
  • Optical communications and networks
  • Radar and surveillance systems
  • Satellite communications
  • Sensor networks
  • Cognitive networks
  • Multimedia signal processing
  • Security and privacy in ICT systems
  • ICT systems for l’e-Health, green environment, emergencies
  • Integrated photonics
  • Graphene applications to ICT and sensing
  • Quantum information
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