In Brazil, the accreditation to offer MSc and PhD degrees in all subjects of instruction is given to universities and their graduate programs by the Brazilian Ministry of Education, which operates through the governmental agency CAPES – Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior – to set the national quality standards for both basic and higher education.

The Graduate Program in Chemistry at UFPR (Universidade Federal do Paraná) was first accredited by CAPES, in 1995, to issue MSc degrees in Chemistry. The authorization to provide advanced education at the PhD level came shortly after, in 1999. The Program aims at training human resources for teaching and research activities in Chemistry and offers courses in Physical Chemistry, Analytical Chemistry, Inorganic Chemistry and Organic Chemistry. The two levels of education, Doctoral and Master, require respectively 48 and 24 months to be completed by the students. The Program (hereafter called PPGQ/UFPR) is considered of excellence in Chemistry as it received the maximum grade 7 (on a scale from 1 to 7) conferred by CAPES in the latest quadrennial assessment process carried out for the period 2013-2016. Only nine among 70 other Brazilian Graduate Programs in Chemistry share with the PPGQ/UFPR this distinction of being grade 7.

The training provided by the Program is totally free from institutional charges or bench fees, and this applies both to Brazilian and foreign students. In addition to this, scholarships granted by several Brazilian funding agencies, such as CNPq (Brazilian Research Council), CAPES and Araucaria Foundation, are awarded yearly to Program students according to their performance in the admission process, to provide for living and maintenance expenses in Curitiba.