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). Its first edition will address the modernization of Engineering courses in cooperation with U.S. universities and scholars from 2019 to 2027.

Through an open and very competitive selection process, an international panel of specialists chose eight projects. These projects will have access to US$5,764,160.00 already available for this strategic program. The PMG will provide resources for 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 a solid theoretical basis, innovative capacity, and entrepreneurship among engineering undergraduate students.
• To generate an 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 quality of education in undergraduate courses and to align these courses with international trends in engineering.
• Integrating undergraduate courses with different levels of higher education, society, and the productive sector.
• To create an environment suitable for modernizing Brazilian education, supported by proper National Council for Education regulations.
• 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-year budget of the PIM, which started in February 2019.

Objectives to be achieved through the PIM over 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