IUSS is a public Institute of Advanced University Education, (funded by the MUR) which works alongside the University of Pavia and the University of Milan to offer highly qualified educational paths to particularly talented students, enhancing their abilities.

It is the only University School for Advanced Studies in the Lombardy region that offers Ordinary Courses together with Scuola Normale and Sant'Anna of Pisa.

It is a young scientific and cultural community that offers opportunities for scientific and cultural enrichment, especially in a transversal and interdisciplinary sense, with a proactive approach, directed to face the future with responsibility and confidence, and to build innovative and sustainable projects and solutions.

IUSS proposes that its students become women and men capable of contributing to the advancement of knowledge, in both the scientific and humanistic fields, by caring for their research training and developing their own research programs.