On November 29, 1968, the Universidad Nacional de Rosario (UNR) through Law 17.987 that determined the autonomy of the powers established in the city that since 1919 and until then depended on the Universidad Nacional del Litoral (UNL).
But university life in the city began much earlier, the first antecedents dating back to 1910 when a commission was created with the purpose of building a teaching hospital, promoting science and education. In those years, with the donation by the Municipality of the land located between Vera Mujica, Santa Fe, Urquiza and Francia and private contributions, the buildings that began to function in 1920 began to be built.
At that time, in addition to the Faculty of Medical Sciences, Pharmacies and minor branches, the Faculty of Mathematical, Physical-Chemical, and Natural Sciences applied to Industry were established in Rosario; and the Faculty of Economic and Political Sciences. In the following years, others were incorporated: Philosophy; Politic science; Odontology; Agricultural Sciences, Architecture, Veterinary Sciences and Psychology. In addition to the teaching hospitals, two secondary schools, the Superior Institute of Music of Rosario and the Superior Institute of Fine Arts.
There were several occasions in which projects were presented to formalize the University in Rosario, but they did not prosper. Already in 1968, due to negotiations for the creation of the School of Law, progress was finally made in the grouping of the academic and administrative units that gave rise to the UNR.
The official presentation of the country's tenth Public University was held with an act at the El Círculo Theater. Those first convulsed years were dedicated to organizing the academic and administrative structure that until then had been subordinated to the UNL, to become definitively the UNR.
From the 1976 coup d'état until the return of democracy, student representatives had limited participation in university government. The UNR, like the rest of the study houses in the country, suffered persecution, repression, police controls within the spaces that promoted the opposition to the regime and the arrest of numerous members of the university community who were among the victims.
With the recovery of democracy in 1983, the university recovered its autonomy, its freedoms, the fullness of student life, the legality of its statutes. When President Raúl Alfonsín took office, he determined to begin the normalization of the universities that were directed towards institutional reconstruction following the paths of the reformist tradition.
The UNR first adopted the statute of the UNL while retracing the normalization that concluded with the statute of 1986 where the co-government with teachers, graduate students and non-teachers was ratified. For the first time since its creation, the UNR had its governing bodies fully operational and began a period of transformations and continuous actions, which have not been interrupted until today.