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The Chemical Engineering Program (PEQ) of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) was founded in 1963 as a pioneer graduate and research program in Brazil, serving as an embryo for COPPE – The Alberto Luiz Coimbra Institute for Graduate Studies and Research in Engineering, Latin America’s largest center for research and education in engineering. COPPE grew quickly to an institute comprising thirteen graduate programs, covering most areas in engineering sciences.

Since its foundation by Prof. Alberto Luiz Coimbra, PEQ has always focused on excellence, both in the formation of highly qualified professionals at the master and doctorate levels to work in industry, academia and governmental sectors as well as in basic and applied research and development projects.

Activities are characterized by a combination of tradition and vanguard: tradition in keeping the principles of academic and scientific excellence that guided its foundation, and vanguard in establishing new paradigms in Brazil, such as the acceptance of doctorate students without a master degree, since 1986. PEQ also started the so-called Giulio Massarani Pilot School (“Escola Piloto Giulio Massarani”), founded in 1994, comprising short-term extension courses in advanced topics in chemical engineering aimed primarily to undergraduate students. These courses were first offered as standard classroom lectures, but since then it has grown to reach out other Brazilian and foreign universities as well as online courses.

PEQ is academically recognized both nationally and internationally and has formed more than one thousand master and doctorate students with varied undergraduate backgrounds including other engineering and natural sciences areas. PEQ is the only Brazilian chemical engineering graduate program that has always received the highest evaluation grade from the Ministry of Education, which represent standards of international excellence.