ITS VITA

ITS VITA

The “New technologies for Life” Technical Vocational School [Istituto Tecnico Superiore (ITS) "Nuove tecnologie per la Vita"] was created to train highly specialized professional figures in a strategic sector of the regional economy, the Life Sciences. The objective of the ITS, which operates throughout the entire Tuscany region, is to fulfill the demand of companies with new high-level technical and technological expertise in a sector that sees Tuscany among the top three Italian regions in terms of the presence of companies and employees as well as turnover.

The two-year course
The “Life” Technical Vocational School [ITS “Vita”] offers young high school graduates two-year courses (4 semesters for a total of 1,800/2,000 hours) constructed on the basis of the needs and requirements of companies: at least 30% of the duration of the training course is performed at a company, internships abroad are promoted and at least 50% of the faculty comes from the professional world. The courses will be developed in three areas of the Tuscan production chain: industrial and environmental biotechnologies, the production of diagnostic and biomedical equipment and devices, and medical nanotechnologies.

The founders
Italian Technical Vocational Schools (ITS) are designed and managed by their partners (including schools, training institutions, companies, universities, research centers and local institutions) in the form of participatory foundations in order to respond to the training needs that are most closely tied to the needs of the regions. The “New technologies for Life” ITS Foundation, specifically, is led by the ITIS “Sarrocchi” in Siena and counts 21 partners including the Toscana Life Sciences Foundation (coordinator), the Tuscan Universities of Siena, Pisa and Florence, the provinces of Siena and Pisa, the municipality of Siena, the metropolitan city of Florence, the “Cellini” Institute of Florence, the industrial associations of Florence and southern Tuscany, and the training agencies Toscana Formazione, ASEV, Confindustria Toscana Servizi and Pon-Tech. Several leading companies in the Tuscan chemical, pharmaceutical and biomedical sector are among the companies directly involved in the Foundation and strategic for the training outcomes of the Technical Vocational School: GSK, Menarini, Kedrion, Corima, and Deka Mela.