It has been able to achieve considerable results in didactics, research, and international relations[3] according to CENSIS (Centro Studi Investimenti Sociali) and the Italian Ministry of Education.

The impact on the city was quite contradictory: the university was seen both as a motivating force for cultural openness and the creation of a new leading class, but also as a fracturing element of protest.

In 2017 there was the addition of the C3A, Center Agriculture, Food and Environment, with the collaboration of the University of Trento and the Edmund Mach Foundation.

[7] The didactic and scientific activities are concentrated around three main "areas": the city area, with the Departments of Economics and Management, Sociology and Social research, Humanities, the Faculty of Law and the School of International Studies; the hill area, with the Departments of Civil, Environmental and Mechanical Engineering, Information Engineering and Computer Science, Industrial Engineering, Mathematics, Physics and CIBIO - Centre for Integrative Biology; the Department of Psychology and Cognitive Science and CIMeC - Centre for Mind/Brain Sciences in Rovereto.

The University of Trento, according to the ministerial criteria, proved to have reached the best national standards for the quality of its research and teaching.

In the yearly CENSIS results, made in junction with the Grande Guida, and published by La Repubblica, the University of Trento is always in the very first positions.

The admission process consists firstly in an evaluation of the curriculum of the student, then in a written test and, eventually, in a personal interview.

[15] The library was created in 1962 initially as a facility to support the teaching and research activities of the Istituto Superiore di Scienze Sociali (Advanced institute of social sciences) which turned into the first Faculty of Sociology in Italy, in 1972.

[citation needed] The Biblioteca Universitaria Centrale, is a newly built University library, designed by Renzo Piano.

The University Library System aims at:[citation needed] The collections of sociology, ancient law books and Slave studies are particularly important.