Santa Úrsula University (USU) is a Catholic institution founded in Rio de Janeiro in 1939 by nuns of the Roman Union of the Order of Saint Ursula, created in 1535 by Saint Angela Merici. Initially called the Santa Úrsula Institute, its Superior Council decided to create the Institute, subtitled Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters of the Santa Úrsula Institute, and it was recognized by Decree No. 8,057 of October 14, 1941. USU has a Rector and 14 undergraduate courses, in addition to a Master’s degree in Labor Management and Residencies, and several Extension and Lato Sensu Postgraduate courses in different areas of knowledge. Its facilities include the Santo Agostinho Central Library and a set of laboratories to support the IT and research needs of the institution’s various courses.

USU has Research, Extension, and Community Service centers, operating at national and international levels. It has a Model Office for the Law course with Forensic Practice (Legal Practice Center), an Applied Psychology Service, a Nutritional Assessment Clinic, and several other community services. Currently, a model office for the Architecture course is being designed.

Santa Úrsula University, within its apostolic vocation, is an active participant in its time, contributing healthily and effectively to the future of generations to come.

The Universidade Santa Úrsula (USU), 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 Santa Úrsula (USU). 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.