Established in 1088, the Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna is the oldest university in the western world. The University of Bologna has a Multicampus structure, with campuses in Bologna and the Romagna region - Cesena, Forlì, Ravenna and Rimini, and permanent headquarters in Buenos Aires since 1998. With a current community of more than 85,000 students, the university is among the largest in Italy. Alma Mater occupies the first place among Italian universities in terms of number of students abroad and is among the top 5 universities in Europe in terms of number of exchange students. 

It is the first Italian university for funds received from the Erasmus+ programme and the second in terms of funds received from the European Commission due to the participation of the Horizon2020 research and innovation programme. The University of Bologna is among the top 5 Italian universities in the main international rankings (QS, Shanghai, Times Higher Education, Censis Guide and the Sole 24Ore rankings). 

  • Davide Rocchetti

    Davide Rocchetti is a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology and Social Research at the University of Trento and Research Fellow at Department of Political and Social Sciences at the University of Bologna. In his PhD thesis, he investigates local dynamics of contention around far-right politics, drawing on an original protest event dataset. His research interests concern contentious politics, anti-far-right practices and political participation. Methodologically, he combines quantitative (e.g., Protest Event Analysis and Social Network Analysis) and qualitative techniques.

  • Andrea L. P. Pirro

    Andrea L. P. Pirro is Senior Assistant Professor in the Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Bologna. He is editor of the journal East European Politics and editor of the book series Routledge Studies in Extremism and Democracy. His research interests cover the broad areas of comparative politics and political sociology, with a particular focus on extremism, radicalism, populism, and democracy; Euroscepticism; political parties and party systems; social movements and political participation. He has authored two monographs – The Populist Radical Right in Central and Eastern Europe (Routledge, 2015) and Movement Parties of the Far Right (Oxford University Press, 2024) – and edited three special issues and one symposium.