Secretaria de Relações Internacionais | Office of International Relations

Arrival of the Brazilian delegation in East Timor. From right to left: Regina Grando, Samuel Penteado, Irlan von Linsingen, Elison Paim, Camila Barros, Patrícia Giraldi, Suzani Cassiani and Renata Anunciação.

On 19 January, a Brazilian faculty delegation arrived in East Timor to initiate the first regular master’s degree program in Education at the Faculty of Education, Arts, and Humanities (FEAH) of the National University of East Timor (UNTL). This milestone follows the signing of a cooperation agreement between UNTL and the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC) on 18 August 2023.

The agreement facilitates a four-year collaboration, enabling faculty from UFSC and other Brazilian public institutions to contribute to the academic and research environment at UNTL. Activities include teaching, launching a scientific journal, forming research groups, organizing libraries, and more. The agreement also anticipates the arrival of Timorese professors in Brazil, promoting mutual academic exchange. These initiatives are funded by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) through the Brazilian Cooperation Agency of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MRE). Currently, 21 faculty members from Brazilian universities are supervising 33 master’s students at UNTL.

 “A 15-year dream has finally come true, thanks to the efforts of many hands, hearts, and minds!” says UFSC professor Suzani Cassiani.

Professor Cassiani is the coordinator of the Cooperation Agreement between UFSC and UNTL, leader of the study and research group, and UFSC Internationalization Agent. “This is a dream of South-South cooperation that has fostered horizontal, decolonial dialogue and solidarity between our nations.”

(more…)

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.

(more…)

This post is available in Brazilian Portuguese only. Please access the website in Portuguese to read.

This post is available in Brazilian Portuguese only. Please access the website in Portuguese to read.

This post is available in Brazilian Portuguese only. Please access the website in Portuguese to read it.

Last Friday, 9 November, the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC) and the Université de Kamina (UNIKAM) of the Democratic Republic of the Congo signed a cooperation agreement, this being the first agreement between UFSC and an institution in Congo. The cooperation between the two universities comes from the desire to expand their academic relations and stimulate the exchange of knowledge between UFSC and UNIKAM.

The agreement was signed by the Secretary for International Relations at UFSC, Luiz Carlos Pinheiro Machado Filho and the Rector of UNIKAM, Paulin Banza Lenge Kikwike. The coordinator of the agreement at UFSC is Professor Marie Helene Catherine Torres from the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures.

Among the objectives of the cooperation are:

• academic mobility of students, faculty, researchers and staff between the universities;
• joint research, teaching, outreach and university management projects and activities;
• collaboration and participation in seminars, lectures, symposiums and academic meetings;
• undergraduate and graduate teaching programs;
• double degree programs; and
• co-supervision agreements.

The signing of the first agreement with a university in the Democratic Republic of Congo is an important milestone that supports the objectives of UFSC’s internationalization policies.