Programa de Pós-Graduação em Planejamento Territorial e Desenvolvimento Socioambiental

PRESENTATION

The Graduate Program in Territorial Planning and Socio-Environmental Development (Programa de Pós-Graduação em Planejamento Territorial e Desenvolvimento Socioambiental [PPGPLAN]) of the Santa Catarina State University (Universidade do Estado de Santa Catarina [UDESC]) is affiliated with the Department of Geography, where most of the permanent faculty members of the program come from. To achieve its goals, the PPGPLAN was created with the participation of professors from other UDESC centers, serving as permanent faculty members and building its multidisciplinary profile. The professors come from the Administration, Public Administration, Design, Biology, Pedagogy, History, and Architecture courses and develop projects linked to the PPGPLAN's research lines and the discussions on Territorial Planning and Environmental Management. Since its creation, it has sought to address emerging issues in the field of Territorial Planning and Environmental Management from an interdisciplinary perspective, in close dialogue with the social reality of Santa Catarina and the national and international context. The two LINES OF RESEARCH are interconnected through this area of ​​ focus in the PPGPLAN: a) Territorial Planning and Social, Economic and Spatial Development; and b) Environmental Analysis and Management.

The PPGPLAN began in 2006, as a Professional Master's Degree, being accredited by the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior [CAPES]) through Ofício No. 755-11/2006/CTC/CAPES) and approved by the National Council of Education (Conselho Nacional de Educação [CNE]) in 2007 (Portaria No. 368, Diário Oficial da União [DOU] of 04/20/2007 – Parecer No. 01/2007). Following the consolidation of the Professional Master's Degree, the PPGPLAN obtained a score of 4 from the CAPES, which led to the proposal of an Academic Ph.D. Degree in 2014, which materialized in Resolução No. 030/2014-CONSUNI/UDESC. The Ph.D. Degree was recommended by the CAPES in 2015 and implemented in August 2016 (Edital DG/FAED/UDESC No. 04/2016). With the implementation of the Academic Ph.D. Degree, the faculty realized the need to turn the Professional Master's Degree into an Academic Master's Degree, thus working as a purely academic program. A self-assessment and discussion process was initiated, identifying the difficulty of maintaining two courses in different modalities: Professional Master's Degree and Academic Ph.D. Degree. This discussion resulted in the process of changing the Professional Master's Degree to an Academic Master's Degree. The request for a change of modality was submitted to the CAPES in September 2019. The request was approved by the Office of the Vice-Rector for Research and Graduate Studies (Pró-Reitoria de Pesquisa e Pós-Graduação [PROPPG]) of the UDESC, and it was subsequently approved by the CAPES after assessment by the Urban and Regional Planning/Demography Commission. Since 2020, the PPGPLAN is a purely academic program.

The PPGPLAN has been linked to the area known as Urban and Regional Planning and Demography (Planejamento Urbano e Regional e Demografia [PLURD]) since its creation, and its AREA OF FOCUS is Territorial Planning and Socio-Environmental Development. With interdisciplinary emphasis, it seeks to interrelate natural and environmental problems with those linked to social, economic, political, and cultural issues. Its unifying axis is the category of territory, since both nature and society have a concrete physical basis, spatializations and territorializations, interconnected at various scales (local, regional, national, and transnational), where social processes take place. Thus, based on socio-environmental and territorial phenomena, the proposal is to produce knowledge that contributes to the understanding of environmental and social issues, from the perspective of territorial planning and environmental management.

The PPGPLAN’s MISSION is to produce, disseminate, and apply knowledge in this field, enabling the research conducted and the knowledge produced to contribute to a rather inclusive, fair, and democratic society, building relationships between nature and society that enable sustainable development, addressing inequalities, and improving the population's quality of life. It is worth mentioning that the PPGPLAN’s mission is linked to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the 2030 Agenda of the United Nations (UN), and to the Goals and the Institutional Development Plan (Plano de Desenvolvimento Institucional [PDI]) of the UDESC (https://secon.udesc.br/consuni/resol-anexos/2021/049-2021-cni-anexo.pdf), committing to the education of its students with a view to fulfilling the UDESC’s Mission: teaching, research and outreach in an interconnected manner, in order to contribute to the education of citizens committed to ethics and quality of life aimed at the sustainable development of organizations and society.  

The PPGPLAN focuses its actions on the following general goal: to prepare professionals and researchers to produce knowledge in territorial planning and advanced and innovative socio-environmental development through consistent and up-to-date theoretical, methodological, geotechnological and practical instruments, with an emphasis on studies in the field of Environmental Analysis, Territorial Planning and Socio-Environmental Development, with a view to seeking university excellence and produce socially relevant and environmentally sustainable knowledge. 

The Master's Degree lasts 2 years, and the Ph.D. Degree lasts 4 years. Classes are held at the Center for Humanities and Education (Centro de Ciências Humanas e da Educação [FAED]) of the UDESC, on the Itacorubi Campus. These classes are in-person and free of charge, as the UDESC is a Higher Education Institution (HEI) maintained by the State of Santa Catarina. Since 2020, the PPGPLAN has established AFFIRMATIVE ACTION POLICIES for admission to the Master's and Ph.D. programs and offers scholarships from the CAPES and the Santa Catarina State Research and Innovation Support Foundation (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa e Inovação do Estado de Santa Catarina [FAPESC]) to support course implementation. Once selected, students can apply for scholarships. Information about the ANNUAL ADMISSION SELECTION PROCESS and how to apply for scholarships can be found on the PPGPLAN website (https://www.udesc.br/faed/ppgplan).

COME AND DISCOVER THE PPGPLAN!