University of São Paulo (USP) (São Paulo)

USP is one of the largests institutions of higher education in Brazil and Latin America, with approximately 75,000 enrolled students. It is comprised of eleven campi, four of them being in the City of São Paulo[1] (the main campus is called Campus Armando de Salles Oliveira, with 7,443,770 m² of area). The others campi are located in the cities Bauru, Lorena ,Piracicaba, Pirassununga, Ribeirão Preto and São Carlos (2). USP is involved in teaching, research and university extension in all areas of knowledge and has been recognized as being the best academic university in Latin America according to the 2005 Academic Ranking of World Universities.

In the "search for alternatives" period in the 1930s, political centralization and the first attempt to provide Brazil with modern administrative, military, and educational institutions took place. The main initiatives included the University of São Paulo, which was created in 1934. Its nucleus was a School of Philosophy, Sciences, and Letters, with professors coming from France, Italy, Germany, and other European countries. USP also brought together several research and higher education institutions in the state, such as the School of Medicine (Faculdade de Medicina), the Polytechnic School (Escola Politécnica), and the School of Law (Faculdade de Direito). (The Polytechnic School includes civil, electrical, mechanical, mining, metallurgical, naval and oceanic, and chemical engineering departments).About 25% of the scientific researches of the Country, comes from USP.

USP is considered as Brazil's top academic and research institute. In its 2005 edition, The Times Higher Education Supplement considered USP to be the 196th best university institution in the world. According to the 2005 Academic Ranking of World Universities, published by the Shanghai Jiaotong University, USP is placed in the group of the 101-152nd top world universities. The EGI (European Graduate Institute) reported that USP is the 58th best university in the world, according to the 2006's edition.

According to the results of the Webometrics Ranking of World Universities (Top 200), USP is the best university of the set of countries named BRIC (est. population: 2.7 billion - 07/2006).

 universitycampus