Our history

Aware of wanting to strengthen its cultural roots, the SIRSSU Foundation has included the Italian Institute of Letters in its development programme since 1981.

In 1984, the didactic component of the first language course was organised with the help of Prof. Ottavio Lurati, a tenured professor of Italian Linguistics, Romance Language Seminars, University of Basel, reassessed in 1986 as a useful study on potentialities.

Since 1992, the first component of the project was organised, being the ILI School of Italian Language and Culture. Courses commenced in 1993 at the Civic Centre (now the location of the USI) thanks to the facilitation of the City of Lugano.

In accordance with an agreement with the then Ticino Department of Education and Culture (today, the DECS) of 19^th December 1995, the SIRSSU Foundation developed a programme to promote the arrival of non-Italian students to the USI, subsequently extended to the SUPSI, with the aim of contributing to the international expansion and the contacts of the university structures of Italian Switzerland. For this purpose, the ILI/USI-SUPSI Fund was created 1996 to flank the ILI/USI-SUPSI Courses, being powered by the SIRSSU Foundation and which grants scholarships to these students attending ILI courses.

In 2002 came the second component of the project, the activation of the ILI Italian Studies Seminar with a symposium in collaboration with SUPSI and the Italian Dante Alighieri Society of Switzerland.

A third component occurred in 2002, with the ILI Workshops for continuing education for teachers, seeing the organisational structure of a Department of Language, Culture and Education, it being dependent on the ILI School, the ILI Workshops and the ILI Seminar. The Department holds the eduQua quality certification, awarded in 2003.