Secretaria de Relações Internacionais | Office of International Relations

– Assist the Rector on matters involving the University’s participation in the international community.

– Promote the participation of international bodies in the process of attracting scientific, cultural, technological and financial resources to achieve university objectives.

– Stimulate the academic community – faculty, staff and student – ​​to make use of the opportunities resulting from international agreements and exchanges to meet their needs.

– Coordinate the University’s participation in international higher education representative bodies.

– Make international exchange a permanent and efficient instrument for faculty and staff development, in a continuous human resource training and recycling program.

– Include the university’s participation in international programs promoted by other institutions in the country, as well as to expand those initiated by our university to other institutions.

– Support and care for the interests of faculty and staff who are absent from the country, participating in training programs or official events, in matters that concern the Institution.

– Promote the evaluation of the actions developed by the University at the international level.

– Promote the routine participation of international exchange in the development of teaching, research, outreach, administration and human resource development at the University.

– Maintain close understandings with the International Affairs Offices at Higher Education Institutions, seeking to combine efforts and resources.

– Promote the Latin spirit in Brazilian and Spanish-speaking universities in Latin America.

– Register the international and national organizations involved in the administration of resources for exchanges of interest to the Institution.

– Register and characterize, through information technology, the agreements and exchanges in force at the Institution.

– Computerize the consultation system on exchange possibilities (courses, research and teaching areas, etc.) at the main foreign universities.

– Implement a process of permanent information on international events scheduled in Brazilian institutions in order to allow the involvement of the University.

– Establish a service that allows the University to be permanently informed of all offers of interest from foreign representations in Brazil or from non-governmental bodies.

– Keep foreign partner universities and institutions permanently informed about the University, especially with regard to teaching, research and outreach performance.

– Keep the University’s faculty, students and staff, in training programs abroad, permanently informed about the University and about Brazil. 

With these objectives in mind, the needs for the viability of this intended international cooperation arose: to access the existing bilateral and cooperation agreements or, alternatively, to conclude the necessary ones.

Then, ESAI proceeded to the survey of all formal acts already performed by the Brazilian government in areas of university interest.

We thus held the largest source of consultation on current agreements (at the time there was no Google!), serving numerous Universities and Institutes in the country. However, in order to operationalize an agreement, a need was evident: how to make an agreement!

ESAI, then, produced the “Manual of International Agreements” in five languages, dissecting step-by-step the internal and external procedures for the implementation of an agreement, in all its types. This manual was distributed among all sectors at UFSC.

For every agreement, an action plan and its respective coordinator – a project that justified and qualified the intended cooperation – was required. Without an action plan, no agreement was signed. The project was then said to be the “negotiation currency”. It was the project that would sensitize the partners and reveal the competence for its execution. To help meet this requirement, made by ESAI itself, an ESAI staff member was assigned to guide, assist and format the projects associated with the international cooperation initiatives.

The agreements had a duration of 5 years, and, if there were no activities registered within the scope of the partnership, the agreement was automatically canceled (not renewed). 

At the time, ESAI had a director, four advisors and a secretary. All with a 40-hour weekly schedule. The office was directly subordinate to the Rector’s Office. 

– Establishment of an international cooperation awareness in the university community, making it daily, necessary and instrumentalized by students, faculty, researchers, managers and staff.

– Involvement of the university community in international cooperation activities.

– Expansion of the “Estudante convênio” exchange program (Erasmus Project and others).

– Provision of the Visiting Professor program.

– Structuring of research groups.

– Introduction of the “sandwich” doctoral degree.

– National and international presence achieved by UFSC in the scenario of international university cooperation.

– Contribution to horizontal international cooperation (inter-universities in Brazil), especially through the work of the Brazilian Association for International Education (FAUBAI), conceived, founded (on 8 November 1988) and conducted at the time by ESAI.

– Significant volume of financial resources raised from non-repayable funding sources.

– Production of the indexes of international university agreements active in Brazil and of governmental and non-governmental organizations active in international academic cooperation.

– Election of the Rector, Professor Bruno Rodolpho Schlemper Júnior, as president of the Association of the Universities of Latin America and the Caribbean (UDUAL), at the General Assembly of UDUAL in Florianópolis.

– Survey of the situation of international cooperation in Brazilian universities (Diagnosis of international cooperation in Brazilian institutions, in the Proceedings of the 3rd National Meeting of the Brazilian Association for International Education (FAUBAI); Fortaleza, 1990).

– Promotion of a Latin spirit in the relations between Universities in Latin America. 

The meeting of the International Association of Universities (IAU), held between 1 August and 5 August 1988, in Rio de Janeiro, together with the plenary meeting of the Council of Rectors of Brazilian Universities (CRUB), provided the opportunity for international exchange and cooperation managers at Higher Education Institutions to meet and discuss common interests. The work evolved into a proposal to hold a national meeting for them, as well as to found an institution that would permanently house and develop their objectives. Consequently, the BRAZILIAN ASSOCIATION FOR INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION, formerly named FORUM OF THE INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS OFFICES AT BRAZILIAN UNIVERSITIES (FAUBAI) was founded, with its first meeting scheduled for 6, 7 and 8 November, at the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina – Brazil. 

1st National Meeting of the International Affairs Offices at Brazilian Universities

The 1st Meeting of the International Affairs Offices at Brazilian Universities was held from 6 to 8 November, 1988, at the Convention Center of the Cabanas da Praia Mole Hotel, in Florianópolis, and was organized by the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC) and the Universidade do Estado de Santa Catarina – formerly named Universidade para o Desenvolvimento do Estado de Santa Catarina (UDESC), under the coordination of Prof. Antonio Pedro Schlindwein, from UFSC. The event had the support of the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) and was attended by representatives of 40 Higher Education Institutions.

Topics of great importance for the international cooperation programs were discussed, such as: Visiting Professor Program, Programa Estudante Convênio (PEC), management of international exchange, university structure, the role of Brazilian government institutions and international cooperation.

Representatives of the main government agencies involved with international education were present at the event: Special Secretariat for International Affairs of the Ministry of Education; International Cooperation Department of the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel; Brazilian Cooperation Agency of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Science and Technology; National Council for Scientific and Technological Development; Council of Rectors of Brazilian Universities; Inter-American Organization for Higher Education; and International Association of Universities.

At the plenary meeting, a commission was set up to implement the Forum of the International Affairs Offices at Brazilian Universities (FAUBAI). It was composed of Prof. Antônio Pedro Schlindwein (designated as its chair), Prof. Vilma Botrel Coutinho de Melo and Prof. Paulo R. Gomes.

The decisions of the plenary meeting were summarized in a document called “THE DECLARATION OF FLORIANÓPOLIS”.

– “The Declaration of Florianópolis”

With the purpose of boosting activities for the development of international exchange and cooperation in Brazilian teaching and research institutions.

With the objective of developing joint actions for the integration of efforts developed in research institutions within the scope of international relations.

With the aim of harmonizing strategies focused on policies for the selection and rationalization of international cooperation and exchange proposals and programs and their conjugation with national ones, and, in a coordinated way, seeking the expansion of new possibilities and a better adaptation of the existing ones, the 1st National Meeting of the International Affairs Offices at Brazilian Universities was held from 6 to 8 November 1988, in Florianópolis, State of Santa Catarina. The event was attended by representatives of the Special Secretariat for International Affairs of the Ministry of Education, the Brazilian Cooperation Agency of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel of the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Council of Rectors of Brazilian Universities, the International Association of Universities (IAU) and the Inter-American Organization for Higher Education (IOHE) and by international exchange and cooperation managers from 16 Brazilian universities.

The participants unanimously decided, in a plenary meeting, to make public the present declaration inspired especially by the new constitutional text of Brazil in its art. 4(1), which states that “the Federative Republic of Brazil is governed in its international relations by the principles of cooperation between peoples for the progress of humanity”, and embodied in the following objectives:

– Propose the constitution of the “Forum of the International Affairs Offices at Brazilian Universities (FAUBAI)”, added to the Council of Rectors of Brazilian Universities as an entity that brings together Education and Research Institutions in the Country, responsible for managing international exchange and cooperation.

– Reiterate the recognition that Higher Education and Research Institutions are bodies that hold competence and suitability for the fruitful exercise of technical, scientific and cultural cooperation between peoples.

– Claim a structure within the Teaching and Research Institutions that allows international cooperation to fully develop, in the fulfillment of its objectives.

– Characterize international exchange and cooperation as a support activity within Higher Education Institutions that gives decisive contributions to the improvement of teaching, research, outreach, administration and human resource development.

– Recognize the cooperation between peoples through their Teaching and Research Institutions, seen as efficient instruments for achieving peace between nations.

– Contribute to the improvement of the policies of government bodies responsible for the teaching and research sector.

– Characterize the management of International Cooperation linked to the Institution, carrying out its activities in a harmonious and continuous process together with the other sectors.

– Demand from the Institutions specific budget resources for the sectors responsible for international cooperation and exchange.

– Characterize international exchange as a creative activity, resulting from intense initiative and stimulation in the incessant search for possibilities of material, financial and human resources existing abroad.

– Claim administrative and fiscal procedures that will allow agility in the imports of equipment and supplies necessary for Research and Teaching Institutions, in such a way that the legal requirements do not become impediments and barriers, but effective instruments to support and stimulate research performance in the country.

– Schedule the 2nd Meeting of the International Affairs Offices at Brazilian Universities, to be held in May, in Belo Horizonte, MG, with a program to be developed from the contributions of international organizations in cooperation with the Education and Research Institutions in the country.

Opening ceremony of the event.

Participants in the event. 

“The moment an Institution identifies itself as a University, it is part of the concert of Nations, it aligns itself, in the world space, with university ideals, it assumes its commitment to combine investments with those of other countries in the pursuit of its objectives. It recognizes the incompatibility of its name – UNIVERSITY – with scientific, cultural, technological and academic isolation. According to its etymology – Universitas – it is the confluence of the participation of peoples and cultures, it is the withering of borders, it is the fragility and incompetence of limits. The University is the gateway to questions, concerns and needs that demand the combination of the most different areas of knowledge in the search for answers and solutions.” Prof. Antônio Pedro Schlindwein