The Politecnico di Torino was founded in 1906 and originates from the Application School for Engineers founded in 1859. It is accredited by the international rankings as one of the main technical universities in Europe (in 2019 PoliTO was ranked 41st in the QS World University Ranking between engineering and technology universities and 3rd place in the QS Graduate Employability Ranking), with about 35,000 students, 14% of whom are foreigners, coming from over 100 countries. The Politecnico is a center of excellence for training and research in Engineering, Architecture & Design with close relationships and collaborations with the socio-economic system. It is indeed a Research University where training and research are integrated and form a system to provide a concrete answer to the needs of the economy, of the territory, of students in a perspective of strong internationalization of educational activities (463 cooperation agreements with foreign universities included in the Top 50 international rankings), of research and technology transfer, with collaborations and projects with large international industrial groups, but also with local companies, where it is proposed as a reference point for innovation.

The Department of Applied Science and Technology (DISAT) is the University’s reference structure for the study of the fundamentals of matter and energy, their transformation and the related engineering applications. The DISAT promotes, coordinates and manages research, technological transfer and services to the territory in the areas of physics of matter and fundamental interactions, nanotechnologies, chemistry, materials science, metallurgy, as well as chemical, physical, materials engineering and food, covering the entire field of skills ranging from the conception of new processes, to the experimental and model development of new chemical reactors and process units, to their control and design on a pilot and industrial scale.

PoliTO boasts twenty years of experience in the field of micro/nanotechnologies applied to biomedical and agro-food, energy and environmental monitoring, industrial systems and additive manufacturing. DISAT has given life to different experiences, with laboratories in Turin and Chivasso.

The DISAT-PoliTO Personnel is coordinated by C.F. Pirri, Full Professor of Physics of Matter. He is the author or co-author of 4 national and European patents, 15 book chapters and over 330 articles published in international journals (Scopus H-Index = 35, Citations > 4800, 33% of documents published in journals belonging to Q1 in the JCR categories of physics, nanotechnologies or materials science). Since 2001 he has been coordinator of the Chilab – Materials and Microsystems Lab (www.polito.it/micronanotech). In this framework C.F. Pirri is the scientific leader of a group that currently accounts for 50 human resources including professors, researchers, PhD students, research assistants and scholarship holders. The Group has consolidated technological and fundamental skills in the growth, characterization and processing of micro and nanoscale materials for the fabrication of MEMS, microsensors, Lab-On-Chip and micro and nanostructures for various application fields. Research activities are carried out in collaboration with numerous industrial partners and academic institutions. The strong synergy with the companies represents a fundamental added value with respect to the scientific competence and tools for a chain of excellence. The Polytechnic, through the Groups involved, operates in 3 European projects, 5 Regional projects, 1 National Flag project, 1 project with the European Defense Agency, 5 ministerial projects (Defense and MISE) and numerous industrial contracts in partnership (Eni, Edison, Vishay, Finmeccanica, Avio, SMAT, …).