UCM was founded on August 10, 1996, by the Mozambican conference of Bishops[1] to make higher education available to central and northern Mozambique.

[citation needed] Campuses are located in Beira, Chimoio, Cuamba, Nampula, Pemba, Quelimane and Tete.

[1] The initiative to create the Catholic University of Mozambique (UCM) came up during the peace negotiations in Rome between FRELIMO and RENAMO.

In June 1992, negotiations were deadlocked; later, the mediator, Dom Jaime Pedro Gonçalves, Archbishop of Beira, presented the idea to establish a quality university for the center and north of Mozambique and to correct the unequal concentration of higher education institutions in Maputo.

The Catholic University of Mozambique was established as an institutional compromise, and was officially founded in 1995 (Boletim da República, Decreto N° 43/95, September 14).