The field of Urban and Regional Planning and Demography in the context of brazilian postgraduation

recent advances and challenges

Abstract

The National Postgraduate System (SNPG) has grown significantly since the late nineteen nineties. Of the diverse fields that make up the SNPG, one that has expanded most has been Urban and Regional Planning and Demography (URPD). The purpose of this article is to analyze this growth process of the field of URPD, considering the expanding number of postgraduate programs, characteristics of the faculty members and graduates within the general context of the evolving budget of the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES). The data used are public and provided by CAPES itself, regarding previous evaluations, containing spreadsheets with average indicators of CAPES assessment areas. To accomplish this task, the descriptive method was used, using quantitative data from the evaluation process of postgraduate programs conducted by CAPES. The four-year period ranging from 2013 to 2016 is discussed in detail. The main conclusions point to the dilemma faced by the SNPG, in terms of the continuity of expansion and the regional disparity in the location of the programs. The context has become even more challenging due to the sudden cut in the CAPES budget, especially from 2015 onwards, which makes it difficult to consolidate many programs that still need significant resources to be structured.

Keywords: National Postgraduation System. CAPES. Urban and Regional Planning and Demography. Brazil. Regional Inequalities.