History
In 1998, the Institute of Marine Sciences (Labomar), at the Federal University of Ceará, started the project of creating the Postgraduate Program in Tropical Marine Sciences (PPGCMT), which was consolidated in 2001 with the beginning of the master’s course and, later, with the creation of the doctoral course in Tropical Marine Sciences (2007). At that time, Labomar had a reduced number of its own teachers and the program grew from the collaboration of teachers from other units and institutions, giving it, since then, an important interdisciplinary and collaborative character. However, with the creation of undergraduate programs in Oceanography (2007) and Environmental Sciences (2009), the teaching staff was expanded and, in 2016, there were 28 faculty members working at the institute, reinforcing the interdisciplinarity with professionals from various areas, such as lawyers, biologists, economists, civil engineers, fisheries engineers, physicists, geographers, geologists, chemists and oceanographers.
As of 2003 the PPGCMT started to attract national and international cooperation with environmental agencies and national and international universities. Specifically in 2009, it started a student mobility program between Brazilian and foreign institutions that maintain an agreement with the program. These activities involve courses with the participation of students and faculty from different institutions, joint campaigns of oceanographic and environmental studies, participation in joint calls and internships for students (sandwich) and faculty (post-doc and senior internship).
The first doctoral thesis defended in the program was the result of an international collaboration between Labomar and the University of Aveiro, Portugal, a fact emblematic of the process of evolution and internationalization of the program in recent years. This trend continues with the sending of new students for international sandwich doctorates in partnerships with the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, University of South Carolina, Instituto de Cienciasdel Mar y Limnología of the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM) and the Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA). The PPGCMT has already received students through scholarships from the National Post-Doctoral Program (PNPD/CAPES) and the Institutional Program for Internationalization – CAPES/PrInt.
By 2020, the PPGCMT will have graduated 259 masters and 111 PhDs, with the strong aspiration, as a commitment of its faculty, to achieve the highest concept in the next evaluations. Most of the dissertations and theses are focused on environmental or socio-environmental problems, proposing alternatives with solutions for these problems.
It is currently an interdisciplinary program focused on research and teaching in Marine and Environmental Sciences, working in several areas of Oceanography and Environmental Sciences, such as Environmental Impact Analysis and Contamination of the Marine and Coastal Environment, Environmental Microbiology and Biotechnology, Environmental Planning and Management, and Sustainable Prospection of Environmental Resources with emphasis on Marine Resources.
The scientific production of the PPGCMT is grounded on the tradition of more than 60 years of research and innovation activities of the Institute of Marine Sciences. The recognition of the quality of the work done is confirmed by more than 11,000 citations (Scopus database) received by the program’s faculty between 1996 and 2016, which confers a factor h 48 to the program.
The faculty of the PPGCMT teaches courses, conducts research and extension activities in the Area of Concentration “Science, Technology and Coastal and Ocean Management”, which has three research lines: “Analysis, monitoring and management of coastal and ocean impacts”, “Dynamics of coastal and ocean environmental processes” and “Prospection, management and conservation of coastal and ocean resources”.
In CAPES’ evaluation of the 2013-2016 quadrennium, the PPGCMT became the second best program in the area of Environmental Sciences in total number of publications and in publications in the Qualis A layer, as well as in the number of defended papers. In recognition of this, the program’s concept was raised to 5.
As a result of the recognition of the Program’s international excellence, in the evaluation of the Quadrennium 2017-2020 the PPGCMT got its concept raised to 6.
