The scientific body was also diminutive, in addition to the director, astronomer Lélio Gama, who also headed the National Observatory, the institute counted with only two young mathematicians, Leopoldo Nachbin and Maurício Peixoto.

[10] In 1971, IMPA became the first mathematical institution in Brazil with a mandate from the Federal Council of Education to award master's and doctoral degrees.

Since then, IMPA's academic postgraduate program has always been awarded the highest grades by the Coordination for Improvement of Higher Level Staff (Capes).

[9] In 2005, the Brazilian Maths Olympiad for Public Schools (OBMEP) was created, an initiative of enormous social impact that strongly reaffirmed IMPA's commitment to the dissemination of mathematical knowledge.

Held annually by IMPA with funds from the Ministry of Education (MEC) and the Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovations and Communications (MCTIC) and support from the Brazilian Mathematical Society (SBM), OBMEP counts on the participation of over 18 million students in practically all of Brazil's municipalities, almost the entire student population from the 6th grade to the end of high school.

[12] In 2011, IMPA became a founding member of the network of higher education institutions that perform the Professional Master's in Mathematics (PROFMAT).

This is a semi-presential postgraduate program aimed at training the basic education math teacher, coordinated by SBM with the support of IMPA.

[15] In 2004, IMPA signed a contract with the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), France's leading scientific funding agency.

[17] From 2016, UMI was renamed after Jean-Christophe Yoccoz, the 1994 Fields Medalist, honorary researcher and long time collaborator and friend of IMPA.

In 2014, Brazilian mathematician Artur Avila, a researcher and former doctoral student at IMPA, won the Fields Medal, the most prestigious distinction in world mathematics.

[24] Among its researchers also are/were Jacob Palis, Elon Lages Lima, Jean-Christophe Yoccoz, Stephen Smale, Maurício Peixoto, Manfredo do Carmo, Marcelo Viana, Welington de Melo, Enrique Pujals, Harold Rosenberg, Marcos Dajczer, Carlos Gustavo Moreira, Fernando Codá Marques, César Camacho, Arnaldo Garcia, Alfredo Noel Iusem, Karl-Otto Stöhr, Robert Morris, and Carolina Araujo.