Laurea

In Italy, the laurea is the main post-secondary academic degree.

Reforms due to the Bologna process

Spurred by the Bologna process, a major reform was instituted in 1999 to introduce easier university degrees comparable to the bachelors. The ordinary laurea was split into undergraduate and postgraduate studies.

First cycle: Laurea

The new Laurea, also known as Laurea Triennale or Laurea di Primo Livello, (180 ECTS credits), a first cycle degree that is equivalent to a bachelor's degree, includes bachelor-level courses, simpler than those of the old laurea, and its normative time to completion is three years (note that Italians normally graduate from scuola secondaria superiore or Lyceum in italian Liceo, high school, at nineteen or eighteen). To earn a laurea, the student must complete a thesis, but a less demanding one than required for the old laurea.

Second cycle: Laurea Magistrale

The new Laurea Magistrale, also known as Laurea Specialistica or Laurea di Secondo Livello (120 ECTS credits in addition to the Laurea), a second cycle degree equivalent to a master's degree, can be earned in a two-year programme after the laurea, and requires an experimental thesis.

The work required to attain the Dottorato di ricerca (equivalent to a Doctor of Philosophy) lasts three years and can be undertaken only after achieving a Laurea Magistrale.

Former status of the Laurea degree

Until very recently, lauree (plural for laurea) took much longer to earn than undergraduate degrees elsewhere in Europe and North America. To earn a laurea, the student had to complete 4 to 6 years of university courses (though it was customary to describe progress in terms of number of exams passed, rather than years), and also complete a thesis, which in most cases required experimental work. Laureati are customarily addressed as dottore (for a man) or dottoressa (for a woman), i.e. "doctor".

Until the introduction of the Dottorato di ricerca in the mid-1980s, the laurea constituted the highest academic degree obtainable in Italy and allowed the holder to access the highest academic careers. Famous scientists Nobel prize winners such as for example Enrico Fermi, Giulio Natta and Carlo Rubbia held a laurea as their highest degree. The reason is that the Italian laurea included high-level courses and thesis work which normally were sufficient to prepare for a career in research and academia.

Third cycle Dottorato di ricerca

Main article: Dottorato di ricerca

The Dottorato di ricerca, a third cycle degree which was introduced in the mid-1980s and consisted in three years of Ph.D.-level courses and experimental work with thesis, all paid for by the state, gained popularity very slowly because only very few positions were made available by the state because of reasons of funding. Indeed, the Italian Republic has never made the dottorato di ricerca a requirement to become professors in the Italian academy. Beginning in 2000, unfunded positions for dottorato di ricerca have been made available, thus allowing a wider access to the degree.