UFPE's Center for Exact and Natural Sciences is consistently the strongest in research production in the university.

UFPE has twice elected the best university in Northern and Northeastern Brazil by Guia do Estudante and Banco Real (ABN AMRO).

[citation needed] Olinda Law School can be considered UFPE's precursor.

These two faculties/free schools, and those of Medicine (1927), Philosophy currently known as Faculdade Frassinetti do Recife - FAFIRE (1941) and Belas Artes (1932), became the base courses to UFPE's formation.

Between the cogitated places were terrains in the neighborhoods of Joana Bezerra, Santo Amaro and Ibura, the Faculty of Law's area, in Recife's centre; and a lot in Várzea, the same place where the Engenho do Meio functioned before and where the university is located nowadays.

The campus architectonic project's conception was made by a Venezian architect named Mário Russo.

Headquartering the Academic Center of Agreste, that in its first years functioned provisionally in the Commercial Polo of Caruaru, holds classrooms, a library, an informatics lab and courses' coordinations.

UFPE is divided in centers, where the departments are located, counting with supplementary organs for administrative, cultural and academical support.