The Department of Psychology of the University of Milano-Bicocca is privileged to be both young and the heir to a great tradition: established in 1999 as part of a newly-instituted university, its roots lie in the Institute of Psychology of the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy of the University of Milan, which institute was founded after World War I by Cesare L. Musatti.

The institute was later directed for many years by Giuseppe Mosconi, who founded the Faculty of Psychology in 1998 and the Department of Psychology the following year, merging the Institute’s multiple lines of research into a single, unified scientific project.

This project successfully combined basic, clinical, and applied research, building on effective interactions between various disciplines which all contribute – from a variety of perspectives – to knowledge of the mind. Re-instituted on 1 October 2012 subsequent to the approval of the University’s new Statute, over its fifteen years of activity the Department grew in both scientific and quantitative terms, and is now one of Italy’s most prestigious departments of psychology.

Numerically, it went from 17 initial members to the current 79, in addition to dozens of scholarship holders and doctoral students; it is now Italy’s largest department of psychology. Among the Department’s many activities is the Honorary Degree granted to the renowned jazz musician Paolo Fresu, who dedicated his artistic career to promoting the culture of the communities and peoples of his native land.