An Innovative Idea of University

 

About Sophia

The Sophia University Institute (IUS) is an academic center for education and research in which life and intellectual inquiry, different cultures and diverse disciplines, meet up in a context permeated by a strong relational dimension.

 

It is not a university setting composed of contiguous faculties, in the classic sense of the term, but rather a laboratory of interdisciplinary and intercultural experimentation: a novel and trial-blazing experience, therefore, a place of excellence at the service of human and cultural development.  

 

It was accredited by the Holy See and credits and degrees conferred by the Institute are recognized and transferable in accordance with international agreements, such as the Lisbon Convention of 1997, and the parameters set by the Bologna Process (for ECTS). Sophia Institute is an expression of the Focolare Movement (Work of Mary), developed through the inspiration of its founder, Chiara Lubich, and an international advisory group of scholars from different disciplines.

 

The Institute is located in Loppiano, Incisa Val d’Arno, near Florence, Italy, and branch sites dedicated to specific areas of research are planned for other countries in the near future.

 

The IUS promotes synergetic projects with other academic centers, particularly discerning new educational and research paths, together with collaborations with other cultural and social entities that in different modalities aim at fostering dialogue, communion in freedom, the defense and development of human rights, the person and peoples.