Graduate Studies

STRATEGIC PLANNING of PPGE/UNICAMP for 2021-2024

The PPGE/Unicamp Strategic Planning is articulated with that of Unicamp, recently finalized. The university's Planning – PLANES (available at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tuq0y6G9wQTgRfYXL_rtk_6LkvpUeyfz/view and in the attached file) was prepared by a broad group of stakeholders from academic units and sectors. The PPGE/Unicamp coordination participated in the internal stages of the Faculty of Education and in the PLANES finalization stages, when the 13 Strategic Objectives were defined based on a new Strategic Map for the institution. It used the results of the 2014-2018 Institutional Assessment. Among the methodological advances, the definition of Indicators for each of its 13 Strategic Objectives stands out.

Unicamp's mission is to promote knowledge for a democratic, fair and inclusive university. The PPGE/Unicamp is very much in line with this purpose. It is also in line with Unicamp's vision of the future, which is to be a public university recognized for its excellence in teaching, production and dissemination of knowledge, committed to socio-environmentally sustainable development, democracy and social justice, and respect for diversity.

In pursuit of developing policies and planning actions aligned with the HEI's planning, considering regional, national and international needs, the PPGE approaches the following institutional strategic objectives. They are grouped into Objectives of Results for Society and Objectives of Excellence in Teaching, Research and Extension.

1. Promote innovation, culture and knowledge transfer, intensifying dialogic cooperation with public authorities and society, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals.

In this direction, it takes as reference its expertise in developing projects with the community, working with external bodies, promoting artistic, cultural and scientific dissemination events, as well as offering extension courses. And it will analyze the impacts, following these strategic indicators suggested by PLANES:

• % of Projects with community = Number of projects developed with the community in the reference year/Number of projects in the previous year;

• Absolute number of teachers/staff who are members of external bodies or advisory committees/public policy committees (per year);

• Participation rate in events by external audiences = (Number of participants/available spaces);

* stratify artistic, cultural and scientific dissemination.

• Event rate = (Total number of events in the reference year/total number of events in the previous year); * stratify into paid/free and artistic, cultural and scientific dissemination events.

• Participation rate in extension courses = (Number of

participants/available vacancies); *stratify ethnic-racial and social profile, participants with scholarships/free of charge and type of course.

• Extension course rate = (Number of extension courses in the reference year/Number of extension courses in the previous year);

This objective and related actions are aimed at promoting the development of a policy to encourage innovation, knowledge transfer and social and academic impacts.

2. Develop a culture of interaction with graduates, contributing to the improvement of the university.

One of the PPGE/Unicamp’s notable action fronts for the next four years, in strategic terms, is the monitoring of graduates. This is a specific Line of Action of the Self-Assessment project, which will be presented in item 1.4. From the point of view of broader institutional dialogue, the aim will be to integrate and foster platforms for interaction with graduates, in addition to promoting curricular updating based on the records, trajectories and professional paths of graduates. 

This objective and related actions are aimed at promoting the development of a policy to encourage curricular innovation.

3. Have updated, flexible, student-centered curricula that use technological resources and incorporate extracurricular, co-curricular and extension activities at all levels of education.

The curriculum of the PPGE-Unicamp courses is not organized into mandatory disciplines, and the main locus of training is research in the Research Lines. In other words, the centrality of the student in their educational path is evident, but it needs to be better structured and evaluated taking into account the parameters of curricular updating and flexibility – through non-disciplinary activities – as well as the careful analysis of the use of learning mediated by educational technologies. 

This objective and respective actions are aimed at promoting the development of a policy to encourage curricular innovation, knowledge transfer and academic impacts.

4. Increase the visibility of teaching programs, at all levels, so that more students feel attracted to the Unicamp training experience.

The PPGE/Unicamp is a program that attracts students from various regions of Brazil. Its faculty is highly qualified. The articulation with this institutional strategic objective refers to the internationalization of students from other countries, particularly from the South-South axis, as well as the internationalization of curricula and training paths, with activities linked to research collaboration networks with foreign universities and increased participation of foreign visiting professors. 

This objective and respective actions are aimed at promoting the development of a policy to encourage curricular innovation and academic and social impacts.

5. Promote integrated research in order to take the lead in the face of the challenges of contemporary society.

One of the challenges of PPGE-Unicamp is to expand and consolidate national and international research networks with the participation of a greater number of faculty and students. In each of the Program's 9 Research Lines, there is at least one project of this nature under development. With this goal, the expected actions are the qualification of Scientific Production, especially with international projection, and the expansion of agreements and Research Projects in collaboration networks. 

This objective and respective actions are aimed at promoting the development of a policy to encourage innovation, knowledge transfer and social and academic impacts.

Specific PPGE-Unicamp projects: self-assessment highlighted

The size of PPGE/Unicamp, its diversity and democratic policy of ensuring the best conditions for carrying out postgraduate work end up requiring a continuous self-assessment regarding how to achieve expected results.

With the set of challenges presented above, the Strategic Planning of PPGE/Unicamp will be strongly supported and subsidized by the self-assessment proposal (Item 1.4) seeking new ways – more integrated – to generate and collect data and information at the university, and even go further and better evaluate the impacts of its missions – both of the research carried out and of the students graduated, among several other topics, which involves research in assessment, in self-assessment, in strategic planning and others – both so that we know ourselves better and can strategically plan our policies and actions, but also as a way of being more directly and effectively accountable to society.

The PPGE self-assessment is based on a “tax project of the program’s larger plan; its systematization brings to light the commitments made and allows for updated readings about advances, setbacks, vulnerabilities and powers, considering a historically demarcated timeline that crosses wills, desires and powers” ​​(Project, 2021, p.01). Its principles are: co-management and self-government, political and pedagogical praxis, and participatory accountability and social control. 

Self-assessment, a cross-cutting action in Strategic Planning, is a opportunity of progress in the academic improvement of the program and its international consolidation. 

The PPGE Strategic Plan will aim at several objectives that are common to the PLANES of Unicamp. In addition to these, it intends to expand, strengthen and consolidate its international presence, expand the processes of teacher and student evaluation, and learn about the educational paths and professional trajectories of the program's graduates, as explained. The topics related to student and graduate evaluation are detailed in the Self-Assessment project, item 1.4. of this Report, and detailed in the following items.

1. Systematic teacher evaluation policy

Since the 1990s, PPGE/Unicamp has adopted a systematic policy of teacher evaluation, through accreditation, monitoring and re-accreditation of teachers in the program. In 2012, this evaluation policy took on a more organic form. An important characteristic of the PPGE evaluation policy is the promotion of an evaluation culture that values ​​the formative and collective dimensions; in other words, an evaluation culture based on the idea that individual contributions are fundamental for participation in the collective. 

In this sense, monitoring the performance of professors in the postgraduate program and their academic production goes beyond establishing a selective (and exclusionary) dynamic of access and permanence in the program supported by merely quantitative indicators. The most positive result of this policy, which is now quite clear, is the gradual appropriation, by professors, of values ​​and evaluation procedures understood as part of their participation in a collective project – the PPGE of Unicamp.

More recently, the study focused on the specific assessment of the dynamics of the curricular training – the courses and the supervision/research activities. In the first semester of 2020, a questionnaire was administered digitally to professors to evaluate the courses they had taught that semester. The questionnaire, with open questions, was prepared by a special group established within the scope of the Graduate Studies Committee, including students. Based on the responses obtained from this open questionnaire, the group prepared a new questionnaire with closed questions and administered it to professors who taught courses in the second semester of 2020. Although the reasons that motivated the preparation and application of this digital questionnaire were associated with the Covid-19 health crisis and, consequently, the adoption of emergency remote teaching in graduate studies, its results highlighted the importance of its systematic application among professors. The still relative resistance on the part of teachers to answer the questionnaire about the development of their disciplines highlights the opportunity to institutionalize this instrument, including as part of the process of monitoring and evaluating teaching in postgraduate studies and strengthening a culture of formative and collective evaluation. It also shows that the culture of evaluation is under construction and not consolidated, that is, there is still much to be invested in this direction.

Regarding communication between professors and PPGE coordinators, we highlight its continuous improvement in recent years, greatly favored by the reformulation of the Program, which has been organized into Research Lines since 2010. Currently, the coordinators of the Program's Research Lines have contributed to facilitating this two-way communication: taking the demands of the Program's coordinators to the professors who are members of their respective lines and receiving their demands and suggestions regarding the Program from these colleagues. This communication, now more decentralized and participatory, which relies on the Line coordinators as channels for verbalizing demands, has given both greater agility to the Program's daily routine and closer monitoring of the professors, which undoubtedly has an effect on the broader evaluation process.

In this context, teacher evaluation should be divided into three areas: teaching, research and guidance.

Responsible:

It will be under the responsibility of the PPGE coordination and will have the contribution of professors and students from the Postgraduate Committee.

Strategies of
Action:

1. Discussion and improvement of the proposal with the CPG and APG;
2. Development, analysis and improvement of teacher evaluation instruments.
3. Systematization of data and public presentation to the group of PPGE teachers.
4. Projection of future actions collectively. 
5. Joint analysis of all information collected.
6. Requalification of the PPGE-Unicamp Secretariat to work with evaluation.

Goal 1: Qualitatively evaluate the work of 100% of PPGE teachers.

Indicators: Teaching: approach to the subject and contribution to training; relationship between teachers and students; relationship with the Research Line. Research: contribution to the entire PPGE; relationship with the training of students. Guidance: dilemmas, solutions and successful experiences to be shared collectively. 

Assessment: the project's actions and objectives will be evaluated every six months.

2. Training researchers for teaching 

Objectives: Discuss the challenges of university teaching and encourage participatory methodologies as resources for the critical and civic education of students. Share innovative experiences of pedagogical practices that allow the explanation of the concepts of education and teaching involved. Establish interfaces with undergraduate teaching activities.  

Actors involved: professors and students of the Postgraduate Program, Coordinators of the Postgraduate and Undergraduate Programs, Support Space for Teaching and Learning of the Pro-Rectory of Undergraduate Studies of UNICAMP, external guests

Action strategies: Discussion round with experts in university pedagogy and institutional bodies on expanding learning spaces about teaching beyond the activities of the PED/PAD Program; Studies on the creation of a discipline on Didactics of higher education; holding webinars on the topic involving other programs; holding workshops; demands for support for EA 2.

Goals: 25% of incoming students involved in specific disciplines and PED programs per year; 10% of teachers enrolled in at least one training activity 

Indicators: enrollments completed; production of innovative teaching materials; participants’ narratives 

Term: 4 years

3. Expansion of the International Insertion of PPGE/Unicamp students and professors. 

Internationalization has been the focus of discussions, sometimes polarized, regarding, for example, the contribution of the education sector to addressing Brazilian educational problems or discussing the impact of intellectual work on society.

In other dimensions, it is permeated by the dialogue of academic production, and by the possibility of creating alternatives to the hegemony of the English language, and why and for whom we conduct research and, especially, publish its processes and results. It is a fact that such discussion is permeated by the social responsibility of researchers in the field of education.

The inclusion of PPGE in CAPES-PRINT has expanded the range of internationalization actions, analyzing the potential, via Research Lines, to place research/researchers in debate with different research/researchers. In joint work, between Research Lines, we choose which are the privileged interlocutors and we will problematize the emphasis, which has been consensual in the area, of thinking about national problems and regional problems with countries with which we have similar social and educational problems. 

Both the CAPES-Print committee and the PPGE/Unicamp Internationalization Committee are careful to implement measures to value and select internationalization activities, especially from internal funding notices within the PROGRAM and those published by the Unicamp Research Pro-Rectorate or the university's International Relations Division. 

Responsible: Coordinating Committee of the CAPES-Print Projects and Internationalization Committee, advisors to the CPG-PPGE/Unicamp.

Public: permanent teachers and students.

Goal 1: Establish collective internationalization projects, organized by Research Lines.

Goal 2: Articulate, institutionally, at Unicamp to participate in broader internationalization actions and projects and contribute to strengthening the university in its purposes and objectives within this theme.

Indicators: 

1. Presence and engagement of research groups;
2. Academic collaboration agreements in collective research networks.
3. Joint publications with foreign researchers (teachers or students); 
4. Obtaining financing from national and international agencies;
5. Co-tutelle;
6. Shared guidance;
7. Teaching publication of at least two articles in international journals during the period and participation in at least one collective project with international collaboration.
8. Participation of PPGE students in sandwich internships and research exchanges with other research and postgraduate centers abroad.
9. New CNPq Research Productivity scholarship holders.

Assessment: the project's actions and objectives will be evaluated every two years