Well ahead of the Italian academic regulations, in 1956 the Politecnico established a program in Electronics within the curriculum of Industrial Engineering. In 1960 the Electronic Engineering degree was brought to life, with specializations in electronics, computer engineering, telecommunications, and systems theory. In 1963 the “Istituto di Elettrotecnica Generale” (Institute of Electrical Engineering) and the “Istituto di Comunicazioni Elettriche” (Institute of Electric Communications) merged into the “Istituto di Elettrotecnica ed Elettronica” (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineering). In 1982 the Institute became the Department of Electronics, headed by Lorenzo Lunelli. The Department was joined by EE Professors, formerly with the Physics Department. The group was led by Emilio Gatti, a pioneer in electronics since the ’50 and director of the electronic research laboratory of CISE (“Centro Italiano Studi Esperienze”, a consortium of Italian companies and public institutions). At the Lab, he had introduced leading innovations at worldwide level in nuclear and biomedical electronics and promoted the transfer to industry, which enabled Italian companies such as LABEN to attain a prominent role. This group brought expertise on nuclear semiconductor detectors and analog signal processing and started new research activities on microelectronics. In 1992, the Department took its current name and, to respond better to the education needs of the growing ICT field, separate curricula were established in Electronics, Computer Engineering, and Telecommunications.