The Fulbright Commission in Brazil, with the support of the Brazilian Ministry of Education, through CAPES, Brazilian Federal Agency for Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education, the U.S. Embassy in Brasilia, and the National Council of Education launched the Modernization of Undergraduate Education Program (PMG). In its first edition it will address Engineering courses modernization in cooperation with U.S. universities and scholars from 2019 to 2026.

Through an open and very competitive selection process, eight projects were chosen by an international panel of specialists and will have access to US$ 5,764,160.00 already available for this strategic program.  The PMG will provide the resources to the mobility of Brazilian and U.S. scholars and Brazilian students, and also the funding to build new teaching facilities.

Objectives

• To create an environment suitable for developing creative thinking with solid theoretical basis; innovative capacity and entrepreneurship among engineering undergraduate students.
• To generate inspiring curriculum; learning-teaching methodologies and undergraduate courses management models. Such models must be replicable in other undergraduate courses under the Brazilian higher education system.
• To format academic collaborative networks between Brazil and the US to improve the education quality in the undergraduate courses and to align these courses with the international trends in the fields of engineering.
• To integrate the undergraduate courses with different levels of higher education, with the Society and with the productive sector.
• To create an environment suitable for the modernization of Brazilian education, supported by proper regulations by the Nacional Council for Education.
• To integrate the efforts on the internationalization of Brazilian Higher Education Institutions.

Selection Process

An international panel reviewed 51 project proposals and selected eight Institutional Projects of Modernization (PIM – from the Portuguese Projetos Institucionais de Modernização) to be implemented in Engineering courses under the PMG.

Sponsor

The PMG is sponsored by the Brazilian Federal Agency for Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education (CAPES – from the Portuguese – Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal em Nível Superior); the Fulbright Commission in Brazil and the U.S. Embassy in Brasilia. The funding covers the 8-years budget of the PIM, which has started in February 2019.

Objectives to be achieved through the PIM through 8-years of PMG

• Curricular project;
• Teaching methodologies and student assessment;
• Governance strategy of undergraduate education;
• Strategy for teacher mobilization, teacher training in new methodologies and evaluation of teaching performance;
• Monitoring and self-assessment systematics of the PIM;
• A strategy for the mobilization of up to two PIM Brazilian scholars per year;
• A strategy for the mobilization of up to ten PIM assistants per year (PhD students and postdoctoral scholars);
• A strategy for the mobilization of up to two PIM U.S. specialists per year;
• Strategy for establishing/consolidating partnerships with the private sector;
• Strategy for the establishment and/or consolidation of partnerships with U.S. institutions;
• Strategy for the dissemination of PIM experiences countrywide.