The PhD program in Transcultural Studies in the Humanities offers a three-year interdisciplinary training and research program with a strong international focus. It is designed to offer high-level specialization in specific areas of the humanities with the aim of fostering deep connections between different cultures and disciplines, with a view to overcoming the divide between humanistic and scientific cultures. Special attention will be given to research aimed at exploring the historical and theoretical relationships, intersections, and connections between intercultural contexts and processes, arts, and sciences, understood both as natural sciences and human sciences.

The doctoral program is structured across the the Departments of Foreign Languages, Literatures, and Cultures; Humanities, Philosophy, and Communication; and Humanities and Social Sciences, and is organized into three scientific areas consistent with the disciplinary domains and expertise of the working groups participating in scientific and teaching activities: 

1. Narratives, translations, cultural production
2. Theory and analysis of artistic and literary processes
3. Culture and knowledge: sciences, philosophies and cultures.

In line with the interdisciplinary approach, the teaching program develops a cross-disciplinary training path across the three areas of the PhD program, centered on a specific theme: Intercultural knowledge and productions. This shared theme will be explored in its various interconnections and in its professionally relevant aspects.

The training program includes a preliminary phase focused on methodologies, bibliographic sources, and the foundations of each of the three scientific areas. Targeted teaching activities and seminars will then introduce candidates to independent research in their respective disciplinary fields, allowing them to complete and deepen their training in at least two areas. A period of research abroad, lasting at least six months, is also planned. An integral part of this program will be the acquisition of IT tools specific to the digital humanities. With a view to promoting the language skills of doctoral students, part of the teaching and seminar activities will be conducted in one or more European Union languages. Specific language training activities will also be provided to improve academic or institutional communication skills in a foreign language, both written and oral. In addition to the University's IT and multimedia laboratories, doctoral students will have access to the facilities of the ‘Language Competence Center’ and ‘Alasca Foundation (Audiovisual Archives)’, as well as the ‘Arts and Humanities Research Group’, the ‘SeStam Seminar on Late Antiquity and Medieval Studies’, 'CISAM - International Studies on the Avant-garde and Modernity, and 'CERLIS - Research on Specialized Languages', which also make their highly specialized resources available to doctoral students.

The PhD program aims to train researchers and experts in professions related to academic careers, research activities in national and international organizations, institutions, and foundations, the preservation and enhancement of artistic and documentary heritage, the digital management and communication of cultural and museum assets, scientific communication, specialized publishing in literary, artistic, and scientific fields, and cultural projects co-financed at national and international levels. From this perspective, the aim of the program is to enable doctoral students to complete and deepen their training in at least two of the areas covered by the training program, with ad hoc teaching activities and seminars that are clearly distinct from the undergraduate and graduate courses offered by the University and are aimed at initiating independent research in the main scientific-disciplinary field in which the individual doctoral student's research project is situated. During the first year, the course offers doctoral students six common educational pathways in terms of methodologies, bibliographic sources, skills, and knowledge considered fundamental for the three scientific areas covered by the doctorate. At this stage, the program also includes the acquisition of skills in IT analytical tools and a foreign language. During the second year, the program mainly encourages the internationalization of doctoral students' training paths through study abroad opportunities as part of exchange agreements and/or co-supervision, and through participation in European doctoral training networks, such as “PhDnet - Literary and Cultural Studies.” Thanks to the application of the knowledge and research methodologies acquired in Italy and abroad, each doctoral student, under the guidance of a tutor and co-tutor assigned at the beginning of the program, will be able - by the second and especially during the third year - to conduct research in national and international contexts, completing their thesis project within the framework of a wide-ranging transcultural and transdisciplinary dialogue.