STRATEGIC PLANNING
The Program outlined a four-year activity plan, summarized as follows:
Objectives:
- Consolidate the expansion of the Graduate Program in Physics (PPGF) by 2020, with an increase in physical space to accommodate new laboratories, faculty members, and students. A project is underway, in collaboration with the higher administration of UFPI, to construct a new joint physical space for the Physics Department and the Graduate Program.
- Intensify the student exchange program for both undergraduate and graduate students, with special attention to those engaged in Scientific Initiation activities.
- Enhance the internationalization of the program by encouraging postdoctoral internships, research visits, and student exchanges abroad. During this period, three PPGF professors participated in research missions abroad at RPI-USA and Penn State-USA.
Goals:
- Establish a Research Center in Physics, with the initial task of developing guidelines for research and outreach activities.
- Create a Crystallography Laboratory (XRD).
- Expand the Nonlinear Optics Laboratory.
- Expand the Computational Theoretical Physics Laboratory.
- Expand the Advanced Microscopy Laboratory.
- Achieve an annual production of three scientific articles per faculty member, published in journals ranked within the percentile range > 87.5% – 50% < percentile < 62.5%.
Actions:
- Train and qualify human resources in the field through regular or permanent events (seminars, colloquia, workshops, and research).
- Periodically evaluate, through the academic council, the results achieved to date and, if necessary, redirect actions.
- Encourage the establishment of multi-user and interdisciplinary laboratories to support all program activities, especially the most complex ones.
- Increase faculty and student participation (through sandwich PhDs) in national and international exchange activities, aiming to grow and internationalize the program.
- Stimulate faculty and program participation in all funding calls for research and graduate activities, issued by funding agencies.
- Apply, without exception, the accreditation and decertification rules (as described in the program's regulations) for faculty members.
With the points mentioned above, along with the opening of our Ph.D. program during this four-year period, we also aim to improve our scientific indicators and achieve a score of 5 in the next CAPES evaluation.
>>> To equalize and improve faculty production, reducing dependency on external faculty, some professors who served as permanent faculty members from 2017 to 2019, were reclassified as collaborating faculty in 2020. This decision was part of the Program's self-assessment process, as their involvement did not result in effective collaborations with permanent program members, nor did they supervise any students. It is unlikely that they will remain part of the program in the next four-year cycle, as proposed in the self-assessment plan.
Actions taken by UFPI to strengthen research and graduate education:
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1. Graduate Program Monitoring Seminars (2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020):
These seminars evaluate programs through experts with CAPES committee experience.
2. Teaching Load Resolution:
- Objective: Regulate the weekly classroom teaching load for UFPI faculty involved in graduate programs.
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3. PRPG Lecture Series (2017, 2018, and 2019):
Offers lectures on current topics for graduate programs, such as self-assessment.
4. Graduate Program Quality Monitoring Program:
- Objective: Support UFPI's graduate program evaluation processes, including New Course Proposals (APCN) by CAPES, Graduate Program Monitoring Seminars, and Interinstitutional Master's and Ph.D. programs (MINTER and DINTER).
5. Resolution for MINTER, DINTER, and Off-Campus Programs:
- Objective: Plan the training of new master's and Ph.D. graduates through interinstitutional projects.
6. UFPI Dissertation and Thesis Award (2019):
- Objective: Recognize the best works developed at the institution, carry out institutional self-assessment, and encourage the dissemination of new knowledge.
7. Promissão Program:
- Objective: Support short-term research missions abroad for UFPI researchers and bring visiting researchers from abroad to the university. Two program faculty members were awarded grants through this program.
8. UFPI Productivity Grant Call:
- Objective: The Productivity in Research Grant Program (PQ UFPI) aims to identify, recognize, and value research faculty by awarding productivity grants to those who demonstrated merit in their proposals but were not selected by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq).
9. UFPI Intellectual Production Publishing Incentive Program:
- Objective: Encourage and support the intellectual production of faculty members through publications in CAPES-evaluated outlets (QUALIS) as authors or co-authors.
Several faculty members from the program were selected in many of the calls mentioned above.