Federal University of Paraná

The Federal University of Paraná (Portuguese: Universidade Federal do Paraná, UFPR) is a public university headquartered in Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil.

Nowadays, its facilities are spread over the capital Curitiba and other cities of the State of Paraná. It offers 124 undergraduate degree courses, 44 doctorate, 66 masters and 5 professional masters programs, apart from a number of lato sensu programs (mostly paid one-year specializations) - see Higher-ed degrees in Brazil. Since 2004, the University has been adopting in its vestibular a program in which twenty percent of the spots offered are destined to students coming from public schools and another twenty percent are reserved for Afro-Brazilians.

UFPR ranks among the 651-700 best universities in the world and 37th best in Latin-America, according to QS World University Rankings. It is placed as the 9th best in the country in the latest "Ranking Universitário Folha (RUF)", published by the nation's largest newspaper.

Since 2009 internal elections the University is run by Rector Zaki Akel Sobrinho, D.Sc. in Administration from Universidade de São Paulo, and Vice-Rector Rogerio Andrade Mulinari, D.Sc. in Medicine from Universidade Federal de São Paulo, and with a Post-Doc from Boston University.

In 1892, José Francisco da Rocha Pombo, an intellectual of the state of Paraná would have initiated the construction of the University, but his project was frustrated by the Federalist Movement.