About us

The University

Placed in the southeast of Brazil, the most industrialized region of the country, UFMG, a free-of-charge public educational institution, is the oldest university in the state of Minas Gerais. It was founded in September 7th 1927 by the name of University of Minas Gerais (UMG). Nearly one hundred years later the institution is the national leader when it comes to education, university extension, culture, scientific research and patent generation in several fields of knowledge.

Its community gathers around seventy-two thousand people in the cities of Belo Horizonte, Montes Claros, Diamantina and Tiradentes, distributed in seventy-seven undergraduate courses, 80 post-graduation programs and more than 900 research centers. In 2016, UFMG reached 1056 patent registrations granting it a leading position among the country’s higher education institutions.

The university also offers distance education, structured in graduate, specialization, improvement and updating levels. These courses are present in twenty-four cities, all over the state.

Since the creation of UFMG, its students have exerted major influence in the cultural, political and economic spectrums of society, acting as trainers of the intelligentsia, of the arts and science, as well as having a seat in the management of different companies and various entities from the state and the country. Learn more in the video.

History of the Graduate Program in Physics at UFMG

The research in Physics at Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG) began, officially, in 1957, with the creation of the Graduate Course in Nuclear Engineering in the Radioactive Research Institute (IRP) of the Engineering School. The Physics Department of UFMG was created in 1963, as part of the Faculty of Philosophy. The activities of the Physics Department, in the beginning, were limited to teaching at the undergraduate level at the Faculty of Philosophy. However, there was a general intention to transform the Physics Department in a center for teaching and research in Physics. The creation of the Master of Sciences Course in Solid State Physics in 1966 was the beginning of the activities at the Graduate level in Physics at UFMG. In the 60's, extensive changes in the academic structure of the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais lead to the creation, in 1968, of the Institute of Exact Sciences (ICEx), constituted by the Departments of Physics, Mathematics and Chemistry. The Master of Sciences in Physics was officially recognized in 1968. In 1969, thanks to a grant from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the first research laboratory of the Physics Department was implemented. The Doctorate in Physics was implemented in 1970 and officially recognized in 1974. The Faculty of the Graduate Program in Physics of UFMG, in the present, is composed by 60% of experimental researchers, 30% of theoreticians and 10% of astrophysicists.

Detailed historical information and updated data about the scientific production of the Graduate Program in Physics of UFMG can be obtained at Plataforma Sucupira.