Institucional

• UFRN Presentation and Numbers
• International Highlights
• UFRN Ranking in Brazil and Worldwide
• Teaching and Research
• International Relations Office
• Localization
• Photos and Videos
• Documents
• Development Plan

The Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN) was founded on June 25, 1958, and has a built area of approximately 300,000 square meters, comprising 5 campuses distributed throughout the state, offering 128 undergraduate programs, 1,542 research projects, 105 master’s degree and 61 doctoral programs, with the following programs - Science & Engineering of Materials and Ecology – having obtained the maximum possible grade of 7 (which corresponds to international excellence) in the CAPES assessment.

In total, it has over 43,000 students and 5,612 employees.

High level education: Between 2021 and 2023, 1,317 new PhDs and 3,240 new master’s degree students graduated from UFRN. This represents a continuous growth in annual degree awarding (484 PhDs and 1,159 masters in 2023 alone).

Projects and Funding:

Current Projects (Funpec): 398 active projects at the end of 2025 (a 70% growth in comparison with the 234 active projects in 2024).

Attraction of New Projects: 148 new projects were attracted in 2025, an 80% increase in comparison with the previous year.

Engagement of Scholarship Students: More than 9,000 scholarship students working in Science and Technology projects managed by FUNPEC.

Rankings: 

UFRN stands out on the international stage, ranking among the best universities in the world. According to the World University Rankings (CWUR), the institution is among the top 1,000 of the 20,000 best global universities, in the 980th position. Furthermore, it ranked 13th among the best higher education institutions in Brazil, as well as 21st in Latin America according to the British ranking, Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2023. And according to the Webometrics Ranking of World Universities, a Spanish ranking that evaluated more than 31,000 institutions in 200 different countries, UFRN ranked 2nd among the best universities in the Brazilian Northeast, 8th among federal universities in the country, and 741st in the world ranking.