University of Messina means tradition and change at the centre of the Mediterranean: the university has always been devoted to its international mission and to the quality of its research and teaching. Since 1548, when it was founded by Pope Paul III, the University of Messina has been a unique crossroad of cultures and the city’s most important political and cultural institution. Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, Pietro Castelli, Giovan Battista Cortesi, Carlo Fracassati, Giacomo Gallo, Mario Giurba, Marcello Malpighi, and Francesco Maurolico have been some of its outstanding scholars. A century after its foundation in 1678, the University of Messina was closed down after the anti-Spanish uprising; it was reopened in 1838 by the King Ferdinand II and closed again only for a short period of time during the anti-borbonic revolution in1847. Since then the University of Messina has been a breeding ground for great minds and intellectuals, such as Pietro Bonfante, Leonardo Coviello, Vittorio Martinetti, Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, Giovanni Pascoli, Gaetano Salvemini. An earthquake destroyed Messina in 1908 and most of the university’s facilities, causing the death of many professors and students. However, in 1909 the Faculty of Law reopened, followed by the faculties of Humanities, Sciences, Pharmacy and Medicine. Step by step, the University regained its vitality, recovering also from the devastations of World War II, thanks to the commitment of chancellors, such as Gaetano Martino and Salvatore Pugliatti. The University of Messina today offers a great variety of courses, first and second level, to satisfy the growing demands of the job market. The University has several campuses, both in the city centre and in the south and north areas Messina, all of which can be reached through public and private transport. The university hospital is in south Messina and it hosts the Faculty of Medicine. The faculties of Law, Economics, Political Science and Education are in the city centre, the faculties of Engineering, Mathematics, Physics and Natural Sciences are on the Papardo campus, while the faculties of Humanities and Veterinary Medicine are on the Annunziata campus, both in the north of the town. The latter hosts the sports campus that includes a large gym, a football pitch, tennis, basket, volley, and baseball courts, as well as an indoor and an outdoor swimming pool. Messina, founded by the Greeks in 756 B.C., thanks to its position at the centre of the Mediterranean, is the ideal city for cultural exchanges. Its cosmopolitan vocation is sustained by a variety of international agreements. The university’s research programmers have inspired partnerships with universities throughout the world. This is why the university promotes, nurtures and reinforces collaboration with foreign universities to the point where the internationalization process has become a vital aspect of its research, pedagogy as well as staff and student mobility. The University of Messina has signed agreements with more than forty foreign universities, in the Arabic world, as confirmed by the agreement with the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, in Africa, the Mediterranean (Spain and France), Eastern Europe (Ukraine, Poland, Russia, Romania), the United States, Central and South America (Messico, Cuba, Peru, Brazil). An international mission is vital for a university promoting a culture without borders.