The official date for the beginning of higher education in Itajaí was September 22, when, in 1964, the Sociedade Itajaiense de Ensino Superior (SIES) was transformed into a public institution by municipal law 599/64. The University of Vale do Itajaí (Univali) currently has over 22,000 students, two schools, 100 undergraduate courses available in both on-site and distance learning formats; 50 ongoing specialization courses, twelve master’s degrees and six doctorates – all recommended by Capes/MEC; libraries on all campuses with over 200,000 books, periodicals and access to databases; over 500 classrooms and 250 laboratories. The faculty consists of 1,113 professors (83.46% of whom have master’s or doctorate degrees) and 1,065 administrative staff; and a radio and TV station.

The Universidade do Vale do Itajaí (UNIVALI), 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 Universidade do Vale do Itajaí (UNIVALI). 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.