The University of Algarve (Universidade do Algarve or UAlg for short) is a Portuguese public university with administrative and financial autonomy. Its two campuses and the central administration are located in Faro, the capital city of the Algarve region. It has about 9,000 students. It was founded at the end of the 1970s. During the 1980s, the former and short-lived Polytechnic Institute of Faro, was incorporated into the University of Algarve, but as a totally independent institution in terms of staff, curricula, and competences, remaining a full public polytechnic institution within a larger and independent public university. The university is thus an unusual example of the cohabitation of two distinct subsystems of higher education in the same institution: university and polytechnic. The university subsystem is organised by faculty. The polytechnic subsystem is organised by school.