São Paulo University

Based on the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), released by the Center for World Class Universities (CWCU) and Jiao Tong University’s Higher Education Institute in Shanghai, China, the São Paulo university (USP) is ranked first in the number of theses defended among 682 global institutions.

Ranked ahead of Harvard and Cambridge Universities, the USP also appears in third place in terms of annual budget allocated to research among 637 universities. The USP is also the fifth at the level of the number of scientific articles published of 1,181 institutions worldwide and the 21st in the percentage of professors with doctorates out of 286 universities.

In the 1970s and 1980s, almost half of the doctoral degrees in Brazil were obtained at USP, and today more than 20% of graduate students also obtain doctoral degrees here.

Currently, it has 23,000 students and 2,192 postgraduate doctors in 2011.

Furthermore, the State of São Paulo Research Foundation – FAPESP (please see our article on this institution) granted in 2010, 1,362 doctoral scholarships.