Our history

The Fondazione ISMU – Initiatives and Studies on Multi-ethnicity – was created in 1991 at the initiative of the Fondazione Opere Sociali Cariplo (Cariplo’s charity foundation). It was then called Institute for the Study of Multi-ethnicity and was entrusted with the missions of promoting studies and research and of carrying out documentation, information and training activities relating to the ever-growing ethnic and cultural diversity of the Italian society. Two years later, the Institute became a foundation endowed with legal personality and was renamed Fondazione Cariplo per le Iniziative e lo Studio della Multietnicità (Cariplo Foundation for Initiatives and Studies on Multi-ethnicity).

In 2001, it took its current name Fondazione ISMU – Foundation for Initiatives and Studies on Multi-ethnicity – and counts amongst its partners the Cariplo Foundation, The Region of Lombardy, Milan’s clergy and, since 2007, the Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Artisanship and Agriculture of Milan.

In 2001, the Foundation’s head offices were enlarged and moved to Via Copernico 1, where are currently located.

The ISMU Foundation, as an independent scientific body, proposes itself as a service provider open to collaboration with national and European institutions, local administrations, welfare and health-care agencies, non-profit organisations, schooling institutions, Italian and foreign research centres, libraries and documentation centres, international agencies, diplomatic and consular representations.