University of Bari Aldo Moro
Bari English Medical Curriculum — Medicine and Surgery, LM-41
Founded in 1925 and renamed for Aldo Moro in 2010, UniBA is one of southern Italy's largest public universities — around 60,000 students across all faculties. The BEMC is a public, six-year English-taught MD run out of a medical campus attached to the Policlinico di Bari, one of the largest teaching hospitals in the south of the country.
How the degree is structured
The Academic Philosophy
Bari runs a "foundations first" structure: theory-heavy early years built on lectures and oral examination, followed by an intensive shift into ward-based practice from year three onward. The course is a single-cycle Laurea Magistrale — broadly equivalent to a combined bachelor's–master's MD track — worth 360 CFU across six years and 36 integrated courses. Of those 360 credits, roughly 62 are basic science, about 180 are core clinical subjects, around 22 sit in related or supplementary disciplines, 69 are dedicated clinical placements and internships (tirocini), 16–18 are student electives, and 8–9 go toward the final thesis. Assessment leans heavily on oral examination, as at most Italian medical schools, with written components in some subjects. The academic year runs late September through the following summer, with the main national exam window opening in February and further exam sessions later in the year.
Foundations
Chemistry, biology, human anatomy, histology, physiology, and pathology, assessed mostly through oral examination — the standard format at Italian medical schools, built to test whether you can reason through mechanisms rather than recite them.
Clinical Methodology
Semeiotics and clinical methodology are introduced — how to examine a patient and interpret signs — alongside cardiovascular, sense-organ, and systemic pathology modules, with the first formal supervised internship of the course.
Hospital Integration
Pharmacology, diagnostic imaging, neurology, public health, paediatrics, and gynaecology, with clinical placements at the Policlinico expanding substantially — rotating through hospital departments in small groups.
Full Clinical Immersion
A full-time clinical internship and practical traineeship — including a placement with a general practitioner — run alongside emergency medicine, clinical surgery, and geriatrics, culminating in thesis preparation.
Where you'll actually spend your time
Campus & Facilities
The medical school is built directly into the Policlinico di Bari — a pavilion-style hospital campus of roughly 230,000 m², 30+ buildings, and 1,500+ beds — so students move between lecture halls, libraries, and hospital wards without long commutes.
Formally the Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria Consorziale Policlinico, and one of the largest hospital complexes in southern Italy — around 80 clinical units spanning oncology, cardiology, transplant medicine, and rare-disease care, plus the paediatric hospital "Giovanni XXIII." The BEMC's teaching facilities sit on or right next to it, and clinical placements from the later years of the course take place within this same complex.
The medicine & veterinary library sits on-site at the Policlinico (Piazza Giulio Cesare 11); reading room open Mon–Fri, ~8:30am–7:45pm, plus UniBA's wider library and journal access.
Student membership runs €15/year (September–August) — free use of the indoor and outdoor pools, an athletics track, a skating rink, and an outdoor basketball court during set hours, plus discounts on organised activities like rowing and sailing. Heads up: CUS Bari's main site is on the seafront near Fiera del Levante — a separate location from the Policlinico medical campus.
The numbers that matter
Admissions, Costs & Housing
The IMAT Exam
Admission runs exclusively through the International Medical Admissions Test (IMAT) — one national sitting, held every September.
60 multiple-choice questions across five sections:
- 5 Logical reasoning
- 4 General knowledge
- 23 Biology
- 15 Chemistry
- 13 Physics & maths
2025/26 reference dates: Universitaly registration 26 Aug–9 Sep 2025 · exam 17 Sep 2025 · non-EU ranking list published 13 Oct 2025 (correction 16 Oct). Dates and seats reset every cycle — the 2026/27 bando wasn't yet published as of early August 2026.
Required Documents
Requirements vary by home country, but non-EU applicants typically need:
- Valid passport, plus a pre-enrolment (visto per immatricolazione) request through the Italian embassy or consulate for most non-EU applicants
- Secondary school diploma covering at least 12 years of schooling (shorter systems may need a bridging qualification)
- Proof of any required home-country university-entrance exam, where applicable (e.g. Selectividad, YKS)
- IMAT registration and result confirmation via Universitaly
- Proof of financial means and accommodation for the Type D student visa
No separate English or Italian language certificate is required to enrol — the course runs entirely in English. That said, Italian becomes practically necessary once clinical rotations begin, since patients at the Policlinico speak Italian, so it's worth starting well before arrival rather than treating it as a later-year problem. One caveat: UniBA's general international-admissions guidance does reference an Italian-language requirement for some non-EU applicant categories — it appears to apply to Italian-taught programs rather than the BEMC specifically, but if this is a deciding factor for you, confirm directly with UniBA's international office.
Tuition Fees
Italian public universities don't charge a flat tuition — UniBA's annual fee scales with family ISEE (Italy's standardised income/asset declaration), plus a small fixed component everyone pays. Roughly €150–€160/year at the low end, up to €2,000–€3,000/year at the highest income bracket; students under the "no tax area" threshold are exempt from the variable portion. Exact ISEE brackets change with UniBA's annual fee regulation.
Seats & Thresholds, 2022–2025
UniBA sets two separate quotas each year — one for EU citizens and non-EU residents already in Italy, and a smaller one for non-EU candidates applying from abroad, which is the one that matters for most applicants reading this. Bari's non-EU quota has held steady at 11 seats every year from 2022/23 through 2025/26 — but with only 11 places on offer, the threshold swings hard from year to year (31.2 in 2023 versus 65.8 in 2024, for instance), so treat any single cycle as a weak predictor of the next.
| Seats | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EU | 42 | 69 | 69 | 69 |
| Non-EU | 11 | 11 | 11 (+3 Marco Polo) | 11 |
Sourced directly from UniBA's published ranking-list PDFs for each cycle. 2026/27 seats and dates not yet published as of early August 2026 — confirm against UniBA's numero programmato page before relying on any figure here.
The EU quota keeps filling well past its first round via waitlist movement (scorrimento): the final threshold dropped to 34.1 in both 2022/23 (round 12) and 2023/24 (round 19); 2024/25's final figure was never published; 2025/26 was still filling as of round 9, at 55.5.
Cost of Living
Based on live listings on Idealista, Immobiliare.it, and Subito checked August 2026 — rental markets move, so check current listings closer to enrolment rather than treating these as fixed. Bari runs noticeably cheaper than Rome or Milan — all-in monthly budgets (rent, food, transport, incidentals) typically land around €700–€1,100.
Good to Know
Some minimum attendance is generally required per course, though enforcement varies by lecturer. Most subjects allow more than one exam sitting per year, and a result can usually be declined in favour of a resit.
No separate Italian certificate is required to enrol in the English-taught course itself — but patients at the Policlinico speak Italian, so it becomes practically necessary once clinical rotations begin. Start early.
UniBA runs no general-purpose dorms of its own — subsidised housing is managed separately by ADISU Puglia and allocated by income eligibility (ISEE), not guaranteed to every enrolled student. Most students who don't qualify for or receive ADISU housing arrange private rentals instead, and Bari's rental market is generally considered far less competitive than Rome's or Milan's. Listings show up on the standard Italian platforms — Idealista, Immobiliare.it, Subito — plus dedicated student-housing sites. The Policlinico sits within Bari's Carrassi district, a useful anchor when searching: a shorter commute generally means looking there rather than the historic centre or seafront, which are further out.
Non-EU applicants without existing equivalent status in Italy need a Type D (long-stay, study) visa via their local Italian embassy or consulate, arranged after pre-enrolment on Universitaly. After arriving, you must apply for a permesso di soggiorno (residence permit) at the local Questura within 8 days — a standard rule across Italy, not specific to Bari. UniBA's international students' office is the main resource for this process; it's also worth checking current visa-appointment wait times at your local consulate well in advance, since these vary a lot by country and by year.
Planning your application
Application Timeline
The cycle follows a broadly consistent rhythm each year, though exact dates shift with each ministerial decree — treat the dates below as the 2025/26 reference cycle until UniBA's current bando is published.
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1
Late spring – early summer
MUR publishes the national decree setting the IMAT date; UniBA publishes its own bando shortly after.
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2
Late August – early September
Registration window opens on the Universitaly portal.
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3
Mid-September
The IMAT itself — one national sitting, held at test centres in Italy and abroad.
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4
Mid-to-late October
Non-EU ranking list published, sometimes followed by a correction days later, then EU/Italy-resident rankings and waitlist movement begin.
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5
Following months
Seats vacated by candidates who don't enrol get offered further down the ranking list — places can open up well after the initial list is published.
Year by year
Clinical Training Roadmap
360 CFU across six years and 36 integrated courses: 69 CFU of that total are dedicated clinical placements and internships (tirocini), on top of the coursework below.
Chemistry & Propaedeutic Biochemistry, Physics & Medical Statistics, Applied & Molecular Biology, Computer Science/Linguistics/Professional Skills (incl. Italian and English language), Human Histology & Embryology, Biochemistry.
Human Anatomy 1 & 2, Human Sciences (history of medicine, bioethics, medical philosophy, epidemiology), Microbiology & Parasitology, Clinical Methodology, Human Physiology (part 1), Pathology & General Pathophysiology.
Human Physiology (part 2), Pathology (continued), Cardiovascular & Thoracic Diseases, Sense Organs Clinical Medicine & Surgery, Anatomo-Pathology (part 1), Surgical & Medical Systemic Pathologies 1, plus a supervised internship.
Anatomo-Pathology (part 2), Pharmacology, Diagnostic Imaging, Laboratory Medicine & Genetics, Neurological Science & Rehabilitation, Surgical & Medical Systemic Pathologies 2, plus a supervised internship.
Muscular-Skeletal Diseases, Psychiatry/Psychology/Child Neuropsychiatry, Surgical & Medical Systemic Pathologies 3, Public Health, Paediatrics, Gynaecology & Obstetrics, plus a supervised internship.
Clinical Medicine & Geriatrics, Clinical Surgery, Medical-Surgical Emergencies (anaesthesiology, intensive care, palliative care), a full-time clinical internship and practical traineeship (incl. a GP placement), and thesis preparation.