The history of the Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Maranhão (IFMA) began in the early 20th century. On September 23, 1909, through Decree No. 7,566, the Schools for Apprentice Craftsmen were created in the state capitals. They were created with the aim of providing the economically disadvantaged classes with an education focused on work. The School for Apprentice Craftsmen of Maranhão was established in São Luís on January 16, 1910. The growth of the system brought the need for its reorganization. To this end, the Federal Institutes of Education, Science and Technology were created in December 2008. In Maranhão, the Institute integrated the Federal Center for Technological Education of Maranhão (CEFET-MA) and the Federal Agricultural Schools of Codó, São Luís and São Raimundo das Mangabeiras. Currently, IFMA has 29 campuses, three Educational Reference Centers (in the implementation phase), a Technological Reference Center (Certec) and a Center for Advanced Research in Environmental Sciences, which are distributed throughout all regions of Maranhão. The institution offers basic, technical, undergraduate and postgraduate courses for young people and adults.

The IFMA, through the national contract between CAPES and IEEE has an unlimited open access agreement with IEEE that enables researchers to publish articles as open access without open access fees in all IEEE fully and hybrid open access journals. The agreement applies to all original research articles accepted for publication between 5 November 2024 – 30 October 2027. To benefit from this agreement, the corresponding author has to be affiliated with IFMA. Please use the correct institution name and your institutional email address during submi​​ssion. It is recommended for authors to select the CC BY 4.0 license. The open access funding request will be approved by an OA administrator at CAPES. Overlength page charges or color fees are not covered by the agreement and will be charged to authors.