Goals

UFES is the main HEI of Espírito Santo, being responsible for 101 undergraduate courses and 60 graduate programs (GP) (76% of the graduate programs in Espírito Santo and 90% of the PhD courses). The institution has 1,552 professors and 25,213 enrolled students – 19,939 in undergraduate and 5,274 in graduate studies. UFES is one of the 21 Brazilian HEIs that has more than 50 GPs, its current number is 60. Out of these, 5 are associated with other institutions. The current number of GPs is a result of the expansion and consolidation of the graduate studies in the last years. In the last ten years, the number of master courses in UFES had a leap from 30 to 60 (100% growing rate), and the PhD from 8 to 27 (238% growing rate). Annually, 1,200 spots are open for new students in master and PhD courses. In 2012, UFES initiated a program to improve GPs called PROPOS, which aims to increase the quality of the GPs evaluated by CAPES’ grade.

The main idea is the implantation and strategic planning of each GP, stablishing performance goals that take in consideration the criteria of each one of the 49 evaluation areas of CAPES and recommendations described in the DAV evaluation forms. To achieve these goals, the programs must stablish strategic actions in the academic area, fund-raising, curriculum review, and incentive to scientific and technological production. It is important to highlight that institutional investment and fund-raising in the institutional calls, such as CT-INFRA/FINEP and CAPES-PROEQUIPAMENTOS, are associated to previewing actions and goals in PROPOS. As a result of the strategic actions, there has been significant quality improvement of the institution’s GPs. In 2010, UFES had 13 PhD courses, with only 3 of them graded 5 by CAPES (0.5% of the GPs). In 2013, UFES reached the number of 18 PhD courses, 7 of these graded 5 by CAPES (1.2% of the GPs). In the last evaluation, in 2017, UFES presented 27 PhD courses, 13 of these graded 5 by CAPES (1.7% of the GPs). Beyond these, UFES has 2 other grade 5 courses in association with other institutions. Which means, GPs graded 5 have been growing its percentage in the last 3 evaluation cycles. UFES’s performance in 2017 Quadrennial indicated growing of scientific production, number of enrolled and graded students. In 2017, UFES reached the mark of 1,000 publications indexed in SCOPUS’ base a year (SCIMAGO Institution Rankings), UFES is now among the top 50 Latin American universities in research, considering criteria such as number of publications, international collaboration, impact, quality of vehicles, excellence and scientific leadership. Despite rapid growth and improved quality, the State of Espírito Santo does not yet have Graduate Programs with grade 6 and 7 in the CAPES evaluation. This is a challenge that needs to be overcome. UFES has been working in this direction.

In articulation with the Foundation of Support to Research of Espírito Santo (FAPES), we initiated a process of technical and financial support to the GPs to achieve excellence. While FAPES releases a public call of R$ 17.5 million, called PROPEX (Plan for Postgraduate Excellence Programs), specifically designed to support GPs currently graded 5 in their strategic plans to reach grade 6, UFES prioritizes internationalization in this sense. It is important to emphasize that excellence and internationalization are not directly equivalent; however, strategic plans for excellence in GPs are strongly linked to internationalization activities. All GPs involved in this proposal elaborate their plans for grade improvement with the view that internationalization is an instrument of support in the pursuit of excellence and, at the same time, a necessary route for this, through attraction of students from different parts of the country and the world, mobility of researchers and students, collaboration with foreign universities, teaching courses, double degrees, and sharing projects and publications. 

In this context, the participating GPs approved in their faculty the commitment of aligning criteria of teacher accreditation, academic policies and strategies of action and funding to the guidelines provided by the areas of evaluation of CAPES for programs with grade 6 in the CAPES evaluation. To select the priority research topics for internationalization, UFES brought together a panel of specialists composed of senior researchers with a recognized level of internationalization and members of the academic teams of formulation/management of institutional policies of internationalization (IO) and research and graduate studies (PRPPG). The selection criteria were based on 02 aspects: (i) excellence; (ii) vocation for internationalization. In terms of academic excellence, the selection panel focused on the institution's best programs according to CAPES, and the ones better prepared to achieve grade 6. The formal commitment of the faculties to their strategic plans was also considered. Among these groups, the panel of experts sought previous evidence of commitment, experience, and vocation for internationalization. Based on these principles, 3 main guidelines were adopted: 1. What are the most relevant problems faced worldwide, which are shared by several countries, including Brazil? 2. To articulate opportunities appropriately with the institution's research strengths. 3. Researchers from different countries investigating similar problems. With the establishment of strengths and vocations, fundamentals and applied research, the panel of experts identified a major common theme among several relevant research groups and institutional internationalization initiatives. Despite this unintentional relationship between the themes, in a first analysis, it became clear that the proposed research activities were motivated by the concrete needs of society in the present times. Globally, cities face major challenges resulting from population growth, migration, developmental inequalities, and environmental stress. These problems increase pressures on the social and physical structures of urban environments, including health, social services, education governance, urban ecology, transportation, water, effluent treatment, communication, energy, and other services.

Thus, UFES has identified “Urban Environment for Today and Tomorrow” as its greatest research challenge linked to internationalization, as a compound of 3 unifying subthemes which incorporate human and technological aspects of the problem: 

• Technology: this theme involves important technological aspects when considering human necessities in terms of life and environment quality, where we live and will live in the next years. Topics such as transportation, quality, use of energy (wind and solar energy, electric and autonomous cars, etc.), air, food and water quality, human-robot interaction (we daily hear about the increasing number of robotic services or apparatus that may be used to help people with special needs, for example), they are extremely updated topics in international and national level. 
• Urban health: the exponential growth of the population results in a deep effect upon global health. The change in the life style caused by urbanization creates challenges linked to health, such as water, food, pollution, violence, and risks associated to outbreaks of infectious diseases. Human factors such as population density, migration, commerce, sanitation, and water access may promote transmission of pathogens and alter main vectors dynamics; on the other hand, social factors as socioeconomic situation, ethnicity, housing, and education substantially affect the epidemiology of infectious diseases. In that context, infectious diseases represent a globally important topic in health management in urban environments, including problems still existent because of HIV infections and tuberculosis, or the new challenges connected to the arboviruses (such as Zika, Dengue fever, Chikungunya, among others). 
• Social issue: contemporary challenges to public policies: the analysis and evaluation of Public Policies related to social aspects have been consolidated as academic themes of international interest in various branches of sciences (social, humanities, and health sciences), strategies being proposed to face social issue expressions in each country. Social issue expressions faced by various countries are similar, however with different magnitude in each of them. In that context, this proposal focuses on education, health, and social assistance policies, whose challenges of formulation and implementation are common to the international science community. This theme has it as central to formulate innovative alternatives that promote conditions for improvements in the quality of human life, supported by scientific knowledge and dialogue with international partners. 

UFES’s main objectives with this project are: (i) to stablish a partnership network with similar profile universities with intense research activities in the selected themes; (ii) double degree and collaborative programs; (iii) mutual acknowledgement and course validation; (iv) collaborative laboratories; (v) collaborative research projects; (vi) collaborative publications; (vii) increasing offer of disciplines, seminars, and workshops in English.