The British Council was founded in 1934, and has been present in Italy since 1945. the founding Royal Charter outlined our mission as ‘promoting abroad a wider appreciation of British culture and civilisation [by] encouraging cultural, educational and other interchanges between the United Kingdom and elsewhere’.

The University of Cambridge formed the ‘Local Examinations Syndicate’, now known as Cambridge Assessment, over 150 years ago. Its aim was to raise standards in education by administering exams for people who were not members of the University and inspecting schools. For the first time in 1858, 370 school candidates in 7 English cities sat exams set by the University of Cambridge. Today this has risen to more than 8 million candidates a year in 160 countries. The Syndicate began examining internationally in 1864, and this aspect of its work grew quickly.