The Universidade de São Paulo (, USP) is a
public
In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociology, sociological concept of the ''Öf ...
research university
A research university or a research-intensive university is a university that is committed to research as a central part of its mission. They are "the key sites of Knowledge production modes, knowledge production", along with "intergenerational ...
in the
Brazil
Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...
ian
state of
São Paulo
São Paulo (; ; Portuguese for 'Paul the Apostle, Saint Paul') is the capital of the São Paulo (state), state of São Paulo, as well as the List of cities in Brazil by population, most populous city in Brazil, the List of largest cities in the ...
, and the largest public university in Brazil.
The university was founded on 25 January 1934, regrouping already existing schools in the state of São Paulo, such as the
Law School
A law school (also known as a law centre/center, college of law, or faculty of law) is an institution, professional school, or department of a college or university specializing in legal education, usually involved as part of a process for b ...
, the
Polytechnic School, and the
College of Agriculture. The university's foundation in that year was marked by the creation of the
Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Literature, and subsequently new departments. Currently, the university is involved in teaching, research, and university extension in all areas of knowledge, offering a broad range of courses. It has eleven campuses, four of them in the
city of São Paulo. The remaining campuses are in the cities of
Bauru,
Lorena,
Piracicaba,
Pirassununga,
Ribeirão Preto and two in
São Carlos.
University of São Paulo alumni and faculty include past or present 13
Brazilian presidents, members of the
National Congress, and founders and executives of notable Brazilian companies. Regarding research, the USP is among Brazil's largest research institutions, producing more than 25% of the scientific papers published by Brazilian researchers in high-quality conferences and journals.
History
After its defeat in the
Constitutionalist Revolution,
São Paulo
São Paulo (; ; Portuguese for 'Paul the Apostle, Saint Paul') is the capital of the São Paulo (state), state of São Paulo, as well as the List of cities in Brazil by population, most populous city in Brazil, the List of largest cities in the ...
needed institutional improvements. Therefore, in 1933, a group of businessmen founded the ''Free School of Sociology and Politics'' (ELSP) (the current Foundation of the ''School of Sociology and Politics'' in São Paulo). In 1934, the intervenor of São Paulo (which corresponded to the governor), Armando de Sales Oliveira, founded the University of São Paulo (USP).
That was one of the efforts to provide Brazil with modern administrative, educational, and military institutions in a period known as "the search for alternatives." One of the main initiatives included the founding, that same year, of the University of São Paulo. Its nucleus was the School of Philosophy, Sciences, and Languages, with professors from France, Italy, Spain, Germany, and other European countries. The ELSP (Escola Livre de Sociologia e Política) assumed the goal of administrative elites to form a new model in which they noted an increasing role of the state. At the same time, the USP (Universidade de São Paulo) focused on training teachers for secondary schools, experts in sciences, engineers, lawyers, physicians, and professors. The ELSP followed a sociological American model, while the USP used the French academic world as its primary source of inspiration.
Foreign professors such as
Claude Lévi-Strauss
Claude Lévi-Strauss ( ; ; 28 November 1908 – 30 October 2009) was a Belgian-born French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology. He held the chair o ...
(France),
Fernand Braudel (France),
Roger Bastide (France), Robert H. Aubreton (France), Heinrich Rheinboldt (Germany), Paul Arbousse Bastide (France), Jean Magüé (France),
Martial Gueroult (France),
Emilio Willems (Germany),
Donald Pierson (US),
Gleb Vassielievich Wataghin (
Russia
Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
),
Pierre Monbeig (France),
Giacomo Albanese (
Italy
Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...
),
Luigi Fantappiè (Italy),
Vilém Flusser (Czech Republic),
Giuseppe Ungaretti (Italy) and
Herbert Baldus (Germany), broadcast in various institutions new standards for teaching and research, creating new generations of scientists in
Brazil
Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...
.
Since its foundation the USP received professors and researchers from all over the world, such as
David Bohm (US),
Giuseppe Occhialini (Italy),
François Châtelet (France),
Anatol Rosenfeld (Germany), Helmi Nasr (Egypt), Gérard Lebrun (France),
Fritz Köberle (
Austria
Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...
),
Alexander Grothendieck (France), and Heinz Dieter Heidemann (Germany).
Origins
The University of São Paulo is the result of a combination of the newly founded School of Philosophy, Sciences and Languages (Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras, FFCL, currently the
Faculty of Philosophy, Languages and Human Sciences – Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humana''s'', FFLCH) with the existing
Polytechnic School of Engineering (founded in 1893), the Luiz de Queiroz College of Agriculture (
Escola Superior de Agricultura Luiz de Queiroz) (founded in 1901), the Medical School (founded in 1912), the traditional
Law School
A law school (also known as a law centre/center, college of law, or faculty of law) is an institution, professional school, or department of a college or university specializing in legal education, usually involved as part of a process for b ...
(founded in 1827), the old School of Pharmacy and Dentistry (founded in 1898), the Institute of Astronomy, Geophysics and Atmospheric Sciences (founded in 1886), and the School of Veterinary Medicine (founded in 1919).
The FFCL emerged as the integrating element of the university, bringing together courses in various areas of knowledge. Also, in 1934, the ''School of Physical Education'' (sports science) of the State of São Paulo was created, the first civil school of physical education in Brazil, which would later be part of the university. In 1944, the Medical School opened its public hospital (''
Hospital das Clínicas da Universidade de São Paulo''). The School of Engineering of Sao Carlos (EESC) emerged in the same year. In subsequent years, several other research units were also created, such as a second Medical School located in the city of
Ribeirão Preto (São Paulo's inland) in 1952.
In the 1960s, the university gradually transferred the headquarters of some of its units to the ''City University Armando de Salles Oliveira'', in São Paulo. In 1963, the
Heart Institute of the University of São Paulo was founded. After that, new institutes and schools were created, for instance, the ''
School of Journalism, Communications and Arts'' (ECA) in 1966. Over the years, some of the university's old departments were transformed into autonomous faculties or institutes, such as the ''Institute of Biomedical Sciences'' (ICB), the ''Institute of Geosciences'' (IGc), and the ''Institute of Biosciences'' (IB) in 1969.
Military dictatorship
During the 1970s and part of the 1980s, some critics believed that the USP underwent an intellectual dissection in terms of knowledge production and the quality of human resources. During the past decades, the university played an essential role in the discussion and dissemination of important political ideas that contributed to the democratization of the country, bringing together many leftist intellectuals (such as
Florestan Fernandes, Boris Fausto, Paul Singer,
Antonio Candido,
Gioconda Mussolini among others).
During the
Brazilian dictatorship, a large number of professors from the USP were persecuted and even tortured – many were forced to leave the country. This slowed down scientific production in Brazil. It also promoted a systematic increase in the total number of graduate vacancies, encouraged by the state government.
The gap caused by the removal of teachers and students chased by the
military regime was interrupted by the campaign of political amnesty in the early 1980s. Several units of the USP celebrated the return of their deposed professors, although many of them were rehired under different conditions (former
full professors took new positions as assistant professors).
Expansion
Parallel to the resulting intellectual emptiness of political repression in the 1960s-80s, academic units were fragmented; new faculties and institutes were created, resulting in new courses, new lines of research, and
graduate programs. Originally conceived as the university's academic core – gathering itself the various fields of knowledge – the FFCL (''School of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters'') saw its departments gain autonomy and become separate units. The ''
Institute of Physics'' was the first department to extricate itself from the old FFCL, followed by other natural science departments.
In 2004, the university founded the
Institute of International Relations' to study global matters in a multidisciplinary environment (law, political science, economy, and history) with Brazilian and international students and professors (''International Exchange Program''). In 2005, it was built in the East Zone of the
city of São Paulo a new ''
School of Arts, Sciences, and Humanities'' (EACH), taking a few courses that go beyond the traditional Brazilian university model and aim to diversify the areas of the consolidated institution.
2On 21 March 2006, the USP approved the merger of a second ''School of Chemical Engineering'' (FAENQUIL) in the city of Lorena (rural area), at the
Paraíba Valley (
State of São Paulo's rural area), with about 1,600 students in total and of these 1,200 at graduation. In 2007, a second Law School was established in the city of
Ribeirão Preto, also in the
State of São Paulo's countryside.
Academics
Today, the USP has five hospitals and offers 247 undergraduate programs and 239 graduate programs in all areas of study.
The university houses altogether 24 museums and galleries – with half a million visitors a year – two theaters, a cinema, a TV channel and an orchestra.
The University of São Paulo welcomes people from all continents and stimulates this process via networks and consortiums
International Office – USP, such as
Erasmus Mundus, Associação das Universidades de Língua Portuguesa, and Rede Magalhães (SMILE – Student Mobility in Latin America, Caribbean and Europe), among others.
Rankings
According to
ARWU, the USP was classified in first place regarding the number of doctorates awarded during 2011. USP is ranked among the top 70 universities in the world, in the Ranking "Top Universities by Reputation 2013" published by ''Times Higher Education''. According to the 2013
Academic Ranking of World Universities, the USP is placed in the group of the 101–151 top world universities. According to the 2020
CWTS Leiden Ranking, the University of São Paulo is ranked 7th in the world. In the 2024
QS World University Rankings
The ''QS World University Rankings'' is a portfolio of comparative college and university rankings compiled by Quacquarelli Symonds, a higher education analytics firm. Its first and earliest edition was published in collaboration with '' Times ...
, the University of São Paulo ranked 85th in the world and is ranked 1st in Latin America. As of 2021, the University of São Paulo is the first Latin American institution in the
Times Higher Education World University Rankings to be ranked at 201-250th.
Healthcare

The USP operates four hospitals, among them
University of São Paulo Medical School Public Hospital, the largest hospital complex in Latin America and the major teaching and training site for the university's Faculty of Medicine,
which is highly ranked within
Latin America
Latin America is the cultural region of the Americas where Romance languages are predominantly spoken, primarily Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese. Latin America is defined according to cultural identity, not geogr ...
. All of them are:
*
University of São Paulo Medical School Public Hospital
*
Heart Institute of the University of São Paulo
*
Public Hospital of Ribeirão Preto Medical School
Hospital de Reabilitação de Anomalias Craniofaciais – Centrinho
Library system

The USP has 42 libraries managed by the Integrated Library System (''SIB – Sistema Integrado de Bibliotecas'' in Portuguese), which is also responsible for the university's online system, DEDALUS.
Dedalus is an online database that allows simultaneous consultation in all university libraries. It is also integrated into a system named Integrated Research, which integrates all online databases signed by the university. This makes academic research faster and provides researchers with easy access to international publications.
Museums and art galleries
The University of São Paulo manages a rich set of museums and
art galleries
An art gallery is a room or a building in which visual art is displayed. In Western cultures from the mid-15th century, a gallery was any long, narrow covered passage along a wall, first used in the sense of a place for art in the 1590s. The long ...
, most of them located on the central campus in the city of São Paulo:
*
Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo (Museum of Contemporary Art)
*
Museu Paulista (Historical Museum of São Paulo)
*
Museu de Zoologia (Museum of Zoology)
MAE-USP – Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia(
Museum of Archeology and Ethnology)
*
Museu do Café Francisco Schmidt (Ribeirão Preto Campus)
Academic career
''
* Teaching Assistant (Auxiliar de Ensino)—MS-2 (must have a master's degree and be enrolled in a doctoral program). Undergraduate students can also be teaching assistants for a semester, with scholarships from each department.
* Professor Doctor (Professor Doutor) – MS-3 (must have a doctoral or equivalent degree).
* Associate Professor (Professor Associado) – MS-5 (must have a ''Livre Docente'' title; equivalent to the German
Habilitation).
* Full Professor (Professor Titular) – MS-6 (top rank, only MS-6 professors can hold positions such as the Dean of a Faculty/School or the university's Rector).
Admissions
Brazilian students take the USP's entrance exam, the
vestibular, which is prepared and administered by
FUVEST (University Foundation for Vestibular), subject to regulations approved by the university's Undergraduate Studies Council. In 2012, 159,603 students signed up for Fuvest's vestibular for 10,982 openings. Candidates must take a multiple-choice test involving chemistry, physics, mathematics, biology, geography, history, Portuguese, and English. The second round of tests is written and specific to the chosen field of studies, including more in-depth questions in physics, chemistry, and mathematics for engineering; history, math, and geography for law; and so on. In-depth written Portuguese questions are required for all.
More recently, students have also been able to access the university by taking the nation-wide high school evaluation test, ENEM, through the
Unified Selection System (SISU). Each undergraduate course manages the vacancies available for each admission process.
International students may come through several exchange programs. In 2012, the USP hosted over 2,300 exchange students. Roughly a third of the international students are enrolled in humanities and social sciences, with another third in engineering courses.
The USP does not require its students, national or foreign, to pay any tuition, as its source of funding comes from the state of São Paulo.
Organization

The USP corresponds to the idea of "university" as a set of autonomous schools, institutes, and colleges, each responsible for one area of knowledge (the aforementioned thirty-six teaching, research, and extension). Like most Brazilian universities, it grants autonomy to its teaching, research, and extension units regarding the didactic organization and curricular definition of each of the courses, which often results in a considered excessive fragmentation of teaching and research and the disconnection between the knowledge produced in each of the units.
Each unit is divided into departments. A department is usually responsible for one of the courses offered by the unit or for a specific search line. In the case of units with only one or two courses, departments are not responsible for the entire course but for a part of it. Due to the aforementioned fragmentation and decentralization of the university, it is common to see departments with similar profiles in different units, which raises criticism as to the effectiveness of public investments and duplication of efforts.
Administration
The administrative structure of the USP has in the
Rectory
A clergy house is the residence, or former residence, of one or more priests or ministers of a given religion, serving as both a home and a base for the occupant's ministry. Residences of this type can have a variety of names, such as manse, p ...
its central organ, as well as in the
Rector the main figure of the university. Subordinated to the Rectory are the four Pro-Rectorates, specialized agencies in each of the university's fields of activity: ''Pro-Rectorate'' (PRG), ''Post-Graduation Pro-Rectorate'' (PRPG), ''Pro-Rectory of Research'' (PRP) and ''Pro-Rectory of Culture and Extension'' (PRC).
In recent years, there has been discussion about creating a ''Pro-Rectorate for Student Assistance,'' a subject that, according to critics, has always been considered secondary to the university's leaders.
In popular culture
* The USP is referenced in
Bernardo Kucinski's 2011 novel, ''K'', a fictionalized account of the disappearance of an assistant lecturer in 1974 and her father's desperate attempt to find her.
See also
*
List of state universities in Brazil
*
List of University of São Paulo alumni
*
List of University of São Paulo faculty
*
Rankings of universities in Brazil
*
Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Unicamp)
*
Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho (Unesp)
*
Universities and Higher Education in Brazil
Notes
References
External links
*
International Cooperation Office – USP
Universidade de São Paulo – Universidades e Carreiras Online(Portuguese)
List of undergraduate courses offered by USP(English)
List of USP's Schools, Colleges and Institutes(English)
Institute of Mathematics and Statistics(English)
Dept. of Computer Science(English)
{{Authority control
1934 establishments in Brazil
Universities and colleges established in 1934
State universities in Brazil
Tourist attractions in São Paulo
Universities and colleges in São Paulo