The SISSA campus is more than a collection of buildings — it’s a living environment designed to support both scientific exploration and everyday life. Immersed in a green park overlooking the Gulf of Trieste, it combines research spaces, social hubs, nature, and services into a cohesive experience. From classrooms and laboratories to the cafeteria, leisure areas, gym, and outdoor blackboards, every corner of the campus fosters connection, curiosity, and well-being. It’s a place where science happens — and where people thrive.
SISSA’s campus is located at Via Bonomea 265, Trieste, within a 100,000 m² park that provides a peaceful and stimulating environment for research and learning. The main buildings on campus include:
- Santorio Building (Building A):
This is the central hub of the campus, hosting most of SISSA’s academic and scientific activities. It includes:
- Classrooms and lecture halls for courses and seminars
- Research laboratories in neuroscience, neurobiology, and cognitive studies
- The SISSA Library, offering extensive scientific resources and study areas
- Administrative offices, including the Student Secretariat and Helpdesk
- A cafeteria and bar on the ground floor, operated by ERDISU Additional services such as an internal mailroom and an ATM near the main entrance
- Building B1: Home to La SISSA dei Piccoli, the campus kindergarten for children aged 13 to 36 months, in a safe and welcoming setting surrounded by greenery.
- Building B5: Hosts the campus gym, equipped for various physical activities, and the music room, located above the gym, available for practice and recreation.
Set in the greenery of the campus park, SISSA’s outdoor theatre is a space where science meets the public, and the community gathers beyond academic walls. With its open-air setting and natural acoustics, it hosts a variety of events — from scientific talks and public lectures to concerts, performances, and cultural festivals. What makes this space truly unique is that the outdoor theatre is literally the rooftop of SISSA’s Aula Magna. While the theatre opens science to the sky and to society, the Aula Magna below provides an indoor stage for SISSA’s most important academic and institutional events. Together, the outdoor theatre and Aula Magna embody SISSA’s commitment to sharing knowledge and fostering dialogue across disciplines, languages, and audiences. Whether you're attending a summer concert or a research colloquium, these venues invite you to experience science as part of a broader, shared culture.
SISSA’s campus offers a variety of classrooms, seminar rooms, and communal areas designed to support learning, collaboration, and exchange. Most teaching spaces are located within the main building and are equipped with up-to-date technology for in-person and hybrid activities. The School provides lecture halls for PhD courses, workshops, and scientific events, seminar rooms for smaller classes, internal meetings, and group discussions as well as flexible common areas, used for informal meetings, quick collaborations, and cross-area interactions These spaces are designed to encourage the kind of interdisciplinary dialogue that defines the SISSA experience.
Surrounding the SISSA campus is a 100.000 square meters public park that blends nature, science, and everyday life. Once part of the Santorio Santorio hospital grounds, the park has been transformed into a vibrant and peaceful green area where students and researchers can relax, walk, or even study outdoors.
The park includes:
- A beautifully maintained Italian-style garden, with fountains, benches, and stone tables ideal for informal meetings or open-air study sessions
- A wooded area with trails for walking and unwinding in nature
- Panoramic viewpoints offering breathtaking views over the city of Trieste and the Gulf
- A permanent outdoor science exhibition on the physics of sound, open since 2012
- Several blackboards installed in the garden, encouraging spontaneous discussions and outdoor scientific collaboration
The lounge room on the sixth floor is a dedicated space where students, researchers, and staff can meet informally, unwind, and take breaks during the day. Designed with comfort and community in mind, it supports spontaneous socialisation and interdisciplinary exchange – a key part of the SISSA experience.
More than just a place to eat, the SISSA cafeteria is one of the beating hearts of campus life. Located on the ground floor of the main building, it brings together students, researchers, professors, and staff in a shared space where conversations flow across disciplines, cultures, and languages. Whether over a morning coffee or a quick lunch between seminars, the cafeteria fosters the kind of informal interactions that are essential to a vibrant research community. It's a place where scientific ideas are born next to daily news chats, where first-year students sit next to Nobel collaborators, and where being part of SISSA feels real, tangible, and connected. Open throughout the day, it’s also a refuge during busy periods — a space to pause, recharge, and reconnect.