The university has campuses in Valparaiso, Viña del Mar, Santiago (Vitacura and San Joaquín), Concepcion, as well as in Guayaquil, Ecuador.

The Federico Santa María Technical University is the alma mater of several prominent businessmen, engineers and Chilean scientists.

While in Paris in 1920, in his testament, Santa María donated his fortune with the idea of building a high-standard technical and scientific institution.

In his will, Santa María manifested that his desired executors contribute to material progress and expand Chile's cultural horizons; altruistic ideas which sought to facilitate entry into the academic life of outstanding compatriots dispossessed but without further requirement than merit, skills and high academic achievement.

This institution would accept and prepare the best students from all socioeconomic backgrounds to gain technical and scientific knowledge that contribute to the progress of the country.

The executors were chosen by Santa María to be Agustin Edwards Mac-Clure, Juan Brown Caces, Carlos van Buren and Andrew Geddes.

The condition imposed by Federico Santa María was that, during the first 10 years, the university must receive academics from the best schools of sciences and engineering.

For example, Arnold Keller, professor of the Physics department at UTFSM, was involved in the development of the V-1 rockets during the second world war, as part of the team of Wernher von Braun.

[11] Research in new areas to the country such as Solar Energy, or Chemistry of Natural Products were created, which delivered two Nacional Science Prize awards, Herbert Appel in 1970, and Juan Garbarino in 1998.

[15] In 1960, the Graduate School was created, and its first director was Herbert Appel (1960-1964), offering the PhD study lines for chemical, electrical and mechanical engineering.

In 1972 the campus "Rey Balduino de Bélgica" in the southeast city of Concepción with orientation in technical-professional areas was founded.

[18] The main UTFSM campus (or Casa Central) is located in Valparaíso, covering most of the front area of Los Placeres hill, on the grounds of the former Pudeto fort.

This campus includes more than 3 hectares of green areas making it the biggest urban park in Valparaiso, despite it being closed to the public.

With financial assistance from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the support of the Ford Foundation, advice from Dunwoody Industrial Institute in the US, and a donation of land by Chile's Agricultural Development Institute INDAP (from the Spanish "Instituto de Desarrollo Agropecuario"), a fully furnished building was constructed in 1971 in Viña del Mar, and it was named the "Jose Miguel Carrera" branch campus, following the testamentary vision of the university founder, the philanthropist Federico Santa María.

In October 1965, the Kings of Belgium, Baudouin I and Fabiola de Mora y Aragon visited the university headquarters in Valparaíso, were introduced to its educational project and as a result initiated conversations for the construction of a branch campus in the city of Concepción.

On February 14, 1972, the campus branch was inaugurated solemnly in the presence of the President of Chile, Salvador Allende Gossens, and the university rector, Jaime Chiang Acosta.

The UTFSM has been historically perceived as one of the most prestigious engineering schools in the country and more recently, with the appearance of national and international rankings, has been placed among the top Universities in Chile and Latin America.

[39] Some notable events: Due to the focused nature of the university, its organisation currently does not include different faculties, only different academic departments, which carry out research and graduate/undergraduate educational programs.

[48][citation needed] The university offers careers of Commercial Pilot and Aeronautical Engineering in its Academia de Ciencias Aeronáuticas [1] in a joint venture with Chilean airline Lan Chile.

The first Chilean and Latin American doctorate degree in chemical engineering was given to Walter Gaete Castro in 1962, with a cooperation between UTFSM and University of Pittsburgh, US.

The UTFSM graduate school started its activities on the 1 August 1960, as a response to the increasing requirements for deeper and applied research in the country.

During the choir's over 60 years of existence, it has interpreted an extensive repertoire, including all manifestations of choral western music, from the Middle Ages to the present day.

The university has a long history of musical expression, in particular through its folkloric ensemble "Alimapu" Different organizations, denominated AEXA (from the Spanish "Asociacion de EX Alumnos") have been created at several of the UTFSM campuses: These organization are created and managed by the alumni themselves, and coordinate their action with the university through the UTFSM Alumni Network office.