The University of Padova (UNIPD) is a premier Italian University, founded in 1222 and hosting a large number of Department including law, medicine, biology, mathematics, statistics, linguistic and literary studies, information engineering, etc. In 2010, UNIPD had approx. 65,000 students, in 2016 it was ranked “best university” among all Italian institutions of higher education with more than 40,000 students, and in 2018 best Italian university according to ARWU ranking.
The Department of Information Engineering (DEI) is one of the biggest UNIPD departments. DEI is very active on research and higher education alike, see, e.g., the new International degree on Internet and Multimedia (MIME, http://mime.dei.unipd.it). The key persons involved in the project are among the coordinators of the SIGNET lab, which counts about 30 researchers of mixed seniority and a number of visiting professors, scholars, and master/PhD students from other countries (about 4-5 per year). All communications within the research lab are in English, to favour a multicultural and inclusive working environment. The team has a strong expertise in the wireless communication field, and has recently gained solid competences on optimization and machine learning, also thanks to collaborations with leading experts in the field.