Eu-Ra Europe Rating, located in Trieste, is an Italian credit rating agency, founded in 2003, for the initiative of a research group of the University of Trieste coordinated by Maurizio Fanni, full professor of Corporate Finance and director of the Ph.D course in Corporate Finance (today Ph.D Finance School of the University of Trieste).

The decision to set up the company can be seen against the present context (the introduction of international regulation - Basel II; the importance of risk analysis in uncertain conditions; attention to operating, financial and default risk; risk management processes; financial markets; credit ratings).

Professors, researchers and Ph.D. students were involved in this project: a transfer of know-how from the University to the world of Finance.

Thanks to the partnership between Corporate Finance Ph.D. (research University group of prof. Fanni -University of Trieste, partnership developed before 2003) and Insurance companies located in Trieste, Eu-Ra began its activity, oriented to the development and the application of methodologies and processes, exploiting advanced scientific information for the interpretation of the state of health and the solvency level of enterprises or other systems issuing a credit rating attribution (default risk analysis).

From the beginning of its activity, Eu-Ra has developed close relationship and collaboration with many other Italian Universities. In particular for research activity and scientific processes: University of Trieste; University Bocconi of Milan; University of Udine; University of Rome La Sapienza; University of Foggia; University of Cagliari; University of Torino).

In 2006 Eu-Ra became officially a spin-off of the University of Trieste, according to University of Trieste's Regulation (in line with Decreto Legislativo n. 297/1999): this is the demonstration that research activity and the collaboration with University remains the key factor of Eu-Ra Europe Rating.