The Department of Materials Science focuses its research activity in the field of functional materials. Over the years, also stimulated by the extraordinary growth of nanotechnologies worldwide, the Department has extended the research of bulk functional materials towards the nanosciences and their technological applications.

Within the spirit of the Materials Science, departmental research benefits from the simultaneous presence of skills in the chemical area and physical area, and the close link and continuous exchange between experimental and theoretical-computational research. Departmental research covers a wide range of topics, from materials for energy to electronics, from nanomedicine to optics and optoelectronics, from functional polymers to sensors. The Department also includes state-of-the-art research laboratories for the preparation, characterization and analysis of materials, together with advanced scientific calculation infrastructures.

The quality of departmental research is witnessed by a dense network of international collaborations and by the ability to attract resources for research through national and international competitive projects, which guarantee the Department a total annual budget of more than 5.5 millions euro.

In 2018 the Department of Materials Science received from the MIUR ministry the qualification of Department of Excellence.