Digital Innovation: Luiss’s new website wins at the 2026 International Splash Awards
The University’s portal, developed in collaboration with SparkFabrik and Altura Labs, has won the Education category: ‘This is a first for an Italian university’
Key points
The new website of Luiss Guido Carli University has taken first place in the Education category at the 2026 International Splash Awards, the international award given to the best projects built using Drupal, the open-source platform used by institutions, universities and large organisations. The award was presented in Rotterdam during the DrupalCon Europe international conference, where the website stood out amongst more than 70 projects from across Europe, bringing this title to Italia for the first time.
Fifteen months of work
This award recognises a project spanning fifteen months, which has redefined the University’s entire digital presence by radically transforming its ecosystem and architecture: the volume of content has been streamlined from 65,000 to 25,000 pages, publication times have been reduced by 70 per cent and performance has increased tenfold, ensuring 99.9 per cent uptime – that is, the continuous online availability and accessibility of the service.
The University’s first Design System, developed by the Luiss team in collaboration with SparkFabrik, with strategic consultancy, content architecture and governance provided by Altura Labs, is based on a multi-brand approach: a single library brings together and organises the elements that define the digital experience across the entire university ecosystem. This is complemented by an AI-powered conversational search function linked to official content. The technological choices are based on an open-source, cloud-native platform, ensuring full digital sovereignty.
Representing Luiss at the awards ceremony were members of the External Affairs Department – Massimo Angelini and Silvia D’Angelo – and the Digital Transformation Department – Francesco Amendola – as well as Matteo Stendardi Turini and Alessandro De Vecchi from SparkFabrik. The speeches delivered as the award was accepted traced the origins and challenges of the project, emphasising the importance of open source as a strategic asset for sharing knowledge and building a robust, innovative and transparent digital infrastructure.
Massimo Angelini, Director of External Affairs, Corporate Communication & Partnership at Luiss, said: “We believe that a university is also judged by the quality of its digital experience. With this project, we have decided to regard technology, usability and design as a fundamental part of our identity, because we believe that innovation, flexibility and openness are consistent with the values that guide our university. We are proud to be the first Italian university to achieve this.”
