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Institutional | About Us

The Postgraduate Program in Computing (PPGC) of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) began its activities over 40 years ago, in 1973. It covers almost all subareas of Computer Science. Currently PPGC counts with 51 faculty members and 4 admin staff.

As part of the CAPES/Ministry of Education assessment of graduate programs in Brazil, PPGC was recognized for its exceptional quality and received the highest score (7-‘excellent’). Our research crosscuts the most important disciplines, including Microelectronics, High Performance Computing, Computer Networks, Real Time Systems, Embedded Systems, Fault Tolerance, Robotics, Information Systems, and Computer Graphics.

We offer degrees in Computer Science both at the Masters and PhD levels. Both aim to train researchers, professors, and highly qualified professionals. Many of our graduates are working in high-tech companies in Brazil and abroad, including Microsoft, IBM, SAP, Google, and NVIDIA, and a number of them are academics in top universities in Brazil, attesting to the quality of our programs.

Recently, several multinational companies such as HP, SAP, Dell, Microsoft, Terra, and others have established research centers in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. PPGC has been actively cooperating with these companies, which often hire highly trained professionals graduated from our program.

PPGC also had a decisive participation in the creation of the first incubator dedicated to Information Technology in southern Brazil, CEI (Center for Entrepreneurship in Computing), whose headquarters are located in the Institute of Informatics. Since its foundation, CEI has helped over 60 companies, many of which have consolidated their presence in the IT sector.

Infrastructure

PPGC has a world-class infrastructure for teaching and research. Our labs are modern and well equipped with 690 computers and workstations, and users of these facilities can choose to use systems running Windows or Linux operating systems. The infrastructure we offer also comprises twelve teaching laboratories used by undergraduate and graduate students, and 35 research labs shared among the several research groups. Admin staff in the computer support team maintain this infrastructure. In addition to research laboratories, the Institute of Informatics has the following spaces for classes, meetings, presentations, lectures and defenses:

– 6 auditoriums equipped with multimedia projector and PC;

– 11 classrooms equipped with multimedia projector and PC.

– 2 rooms equipped for video conferencing.

All doctoral students and full-time master students have their own workspace desks in our labs.

Scholarships and financial support

UFRGS, a public university, is entirely free: there are no tuition fees neither for Brazilian nor foreign students. Every year PPGC allocates a number of scholarships to its MSc and PhD students. The scholarships are provided mostly by Brazilian funding agencies, and can be held for a maximum of two and four years, by MSc and PhD students, respectively. Finally, our students also receive financial support to cover research related costs such as traveling expenses for presenting papers at conferences in Brazil and abroad.