[citation needed] Following the Italian higher education reform introduced by the law 240/10 and adopted by the University of Catania in its new statute, faculties have been deactivated and departments have been reorganized.

The University of Catania now has 17 departments, the Faculty of Medicine, and two special didactic units established in the decentralized offices of Ragusa (Modern Languages) and Syracuse (Architecture).

A charter was granted after two royal councillors (Adamo Asmundo and Battista Platamone) convinced the king to accept the founding of a Studium Generale in Catania, with the papal recognition arriving ten years later from Pope Eugene IV (18 April 1444).

Alfonso V with this gesture wanted to compensate the city (in which there had been recently established the royal court) for moving the Sicilian capital from Catania to Palermo.

Lessons were initially held in a building in Piazza del Duomo, next to the Cathedral of Sant'Agata, and eventually moved to the Palazzo dell'Università in the late 1690s.