Secretaria de Relações Internacionais | Office of International Relations

The Research with International Students Conference was held on 11 and 12 December in a hybrid format (online and in-person) at the University of Manchester (UK). The event sought to develop more methodological guidance to steer this subfield away from problematic discourses and assumptions, through presentations dealing with the following issues: critical conceptual and methodological issues currently faced by research with international students; practical (macro or micro) considerations for research in this subfield; issues of power, inequality, intersectionality and ethics in research with international students; how research with international students might be imagined differently; and what the future of research with international students should look like.

Based on this, the SINTEGRA project – a partnership between the Office of International Relations (SINTER/UFSC) and the Department of Psychology at UFSC – delivered a presentation entitled “SINTEGRA as an initiative to integrate international students from the Global South into a Brazilian public university“. They presented the Programa de Estudantes-Convênio de Graduação (PEC-G), how the project works, its objectives and the ongoing actions. The presentation was prepared by the Director of International Relations Fernanda Leal, the head of PEC-G at UFSC Elisa Freitas Schemes, the SINTEGRA coordinator Elka Lima Hostensky, and the psychology professor Lígia Rocha. The presentation was also attended by Paula Eduarda Michels, English/Portuguese translator and interpreter at SINTER.

According to Elisa Schemes, “our participation in the event reinforces UFSC’s inclusion in a network of researchers focused on critical perspectives on internationalization”. She adds that SINTEGRA is aligned with the debate on international students, not only because of the challenges they face, but also because of the potential their presence brings to the university community.

“Creating pioneering spaces that value the production of knowledge, methodologies and new institutional policies with and for the international student community is a great opportunity to exchange experiences at an international level and to provoke us to think about the potential and challenges that Global South cooperation presents us,” says Professor Lígia Rocha. She states that the opportunity to present a young project reinforces the commitment to uniting research, outreach and internationalization on the theme of the academic integration of international students in Brazil.

To check out the themes of the other presentations, access the full program here.

The Research with International Students Conference is funded by The Spencer Foundation and builds on the publication of the Research with International Students book, published in November 2023. It further establishes a network of critical researchers and scholars who wish to develop more ethical approaches towards research that includes international students as participants and co-researchers. To learn more about the conference, click here.