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The Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz is a public, higher education institution in the city of Ilheus, Bahia in Brazil. 

In 1972, a group of independent schools were unified to form the Federação das Escolas Superiores de Ilhéus e Itabuna – FESP. It then became a public higher education institution in 1991 and was the only university in the city until the early 90s. 

It was the result of a merging of a variety of academic institutions in the twin cities of Ilheus and Itabuna. It now leads in the higher education sphere in the south of Bahia. 

It offers 37 undergraduate courses including medicine, law, arts and sciences and it also offers 35 different graduate programmes. The student body comprises 8,500 undergraduate students and 1,050 graduate students.

Surrounded by Atlantic Rainforest, it was built within the grounds of a large cocoa farm, as can be seen from the cocoa trees located around the administrative buildings. 

It prioritises its ecological role in the area’s conservation by implementing various research activities relating to agriculture and farming. It is also surrounded by many other cocoa farms, most of which were founded over a century ago and have small houses with drying roofs where the cocoa is processed. 

The campus is 40 minutes from Ilhéus airport, in Bahia state and one can reach the university by taxi or several bus lines. From Salvador, it is a six-hour bus ride to Ilhéus.