The Universidade Estadual do Norte Fluminense arises from the process of expanding public and free education to the country side of the state of RJ. Leonel Brizola, newly installed governor, put in place the implementation of UENF in 1991, delegating to Professor Darcy Ribeiro the task of designing the model and coordinating the implementation.

Darcy Ribeiro’s University of the Third Millennium was made up of thematic and multidisciplinary laboratories as a cell of academic life. Such a structure remains till today. UENF was also one of the pioneering institutions in offering distance-learning undergraduate programs, being responsible, in early 2002, for the first distance-learning undergraduate program (in Biology) implemented in the country.