Fixed-term contracts in the Italian programs of foreign universities

In recent years foreign universities have launched various study programs in Italy. These programs are generally managed by non-profit legal entities, recognized by Italian law and called “branches” of foreign universities.

The programs have organizational, tax and financial specificities that generate significant complexities in the management of the employment contracts for the Professors of the program.

Such peculiarities have been duly taken into account in the regulation of fixed-term employment contracts, which was recently confirmed in the law converting the s.c. "labour decree" (Decree-law no. 48/2023).

The “branches” of foreign universities

The s.c. branches are non-profit entities whose typical purpose is to allow students of foreign universities, through a period of study abroad, to acquire additional skills compared to those they would acquire by training exclusively in their home Country. These must be skills that confer a quid pluris that cannot be acquired in the home country of the universities, or elsewhere.

The establishment of branches is authorized if it offers courses:

- with a strong link to the Italian territory, culture and history

- and which, at the same time, do not qualify or characterize the main degree course abroad (ex multis