Polytechnic University of Bari is an Italian public university founded in 1990, when the well-established Faculty of Engineering and the newly-founded Faculty of Architecture, which at that time were both part of the University of Bari, were brought together. Later the Second Faculty of Engineering was created in Taranto. The Faculty of Engineering, which dates back to 1943, at that time only offered a Civil Engineering Degree Course. Over the course of time, degree courses in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electronics Engineering, Management Engineering, Computer Science Engineering, Environmental Engineering and Building Engineering–Architecture, together with an Industrial Design Degree Course, were added.
Polytechnic University of Bari now offers a wide range of study opportunities, consisting in eight First Level Degree courses, eleven Second Level Degree courses and two Five-Year Second Level Degree courses, along with many Postgraduate courses and Ph.D.’s.
Approximately 11,000 students are enrolled, in different locations in Bari, Foggia and Taranto.
Current Rector is Professor Francesco Cupertino.
Most of the structures are at the university Campus "Quagliariello", located in via Orabona, whereas some other departments are in neighboring areas. In particular some structures, mostly parking lots and offices, are located at Scianatico (via Amendola) and important technological laboratories are located at Japigia. The latter is also the seat of DMMM (Department of Mechanical Engineering, Mathematics and Management).
Polytechnic University of Bari is an international centre of excellence which pursues "the cultural, scientific and technological progress through the organization of research in scientific, technological, humanistic and economic-social fields and of higher education mainly in architecture and engineering, as well as the processing and the transfer of the most advanced scientific and technological knowledge, for the development of the society and the territory" (art. 1 - Statute of the Polytechnic University) .
According to the ranking of the SIR World Report 2013, which evaluates more than 4,000 research institutions in the world, on the basis of Elsevier Scopus database (publications 2007-2011) the Polytechnic University of Bari ranks, for the third year in a row, at the first place among Italian universities according to the Normalized Impact, which indicates the citation rate an institution receives compared to the world average for each area of research, and, for the second year in a row, at the first place according to the Excellence Rate, which indicates the proportion of an institution's scientific output in the set formed by 10% of the highly cited papers in their respective fields.
As stated in the Report, the Normalized Impact of the Polytechnic University is 2.03 in 2013, showing an increase if compared to the values of the previous years (2010: 1.30, 2011: 1.55, 2012: 1.70). Of particular significance is the gap separating the Polytechnic University not only from important universities in the North of Italy, such as the Polytechnic University di Milano (1.42) and Torino (1.36), or the Bocconi University (1.58), but also from important research institutions, such as CNR (1.28), Pisa (1.82) and the Italian Institute of Technology (1.85).
Along with a documented scientific excellence, one of the main features of the Polytechnic University is the recognized teaching effectiveness, as certified by Istat, as 89% of the graduates find a job within three years from graduation.