The Competence Centre for School Inclusion of the Free University of Bolzano is a competence center for research, networking and scientific communication in the area of inclusive education. It rests upon a broad idea of school inclusion in the sense of a constant process of developing ways to tackle all students’ diversities. It aims at granting participation and achievement to everybody by means of identifying and removing barriers in the school culture, policies and practices. This perspective also involves a responsibility to carefully look at groups of children and students that are more at risk of experiencing exclusion and underachievement.

The Competence Centre develops research, networking and scientific communication on the local, national and international levels. In fact, the geographical and cultural position of the Free University of Bolzano offers interesting perspectives for:

• evaluating, communicating and discussing the Italian and South Tyrolean model of school inclusion in the international context,
• the development of research projects on inclusion relevant to the schools of the Province of Bolzano, considering local, national and international research evidences.

The idea of the Competence Centre is rooted in the Province Law 7/2015 that defines its major tasks in the Article 13 and that can be summarized as follows:

• specific research for the implementation of inclusion in the education system;
• scientific and institutional networking and collaborations with other organizations if the field of inclusive education
• scientific elaboration of concepts for teacher training and continuous professional development of teachers and other professionals involved in inclusive processes in schools;
• scientific elaboration of a regulation for students with disabilities and special educational needs attending courses at the Free University of Bolzano-Bozen.