UEM and UEL are two public institutions in Paraná of similar size, consolidated and well consolidated, with strong regional insertion. Together they offer 115 undergraduate courses, 92 master’s and 51 doctoral courses. They are the state universities with the highest IGC index in MEC / INEP and are among the top 30 Brazilian institutions with the largest number of graduate programs, according to CAPES’s 2013-2016 quadrennial evaluation.
The Postgraduation Program (PPU) was authorized in December 2011, and started its first master class in March 2012, it is important to highlight that this is the first master’s program in the State of Paraná. The project was built based on the skills of the two groups of teachers engaged in its creation. Despite the physical proximity of the two institutions (100 km away), there were clear distinctions as to the lines of action of these two groups with a different organizational culture. Therefore, since the beginning, annual reports have been sent to CAPES, we consider this as an opportunity to analyze divergences and convergences, promoting a self-assessment with the consequent formulation of short and medium term action plans, characterizing a learning process, enhancing the maturity of the group. This process promoted integration, clarified divergences and led the program to reach a score of 4 in the first evaluation, at the end of the four-year period in 2016: goal established and achieved!
This rapid evolution of the Program motivated the submission of a doctoral course proposal, which was approved in November 2018 and started in March 2019. The region covered by the PPU was certainly expanded with the implementation of the doctorate as it was the first doctoral course in Architecture and Urbanism of the State of Paraná, whose demand covers the States of Santa Catarina, South and Southwest of the State of São Paulo and Mato Grosso do Sul, reaching up to Mato Grosso and Goiás.
