Redes de universidades: novos espaços de articulação e/ou decisão no campo da educação superior pública brasileira

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the emergence of consortiums of federal universities as new spaces of articulation and/or decision in the field of Brazilian public higher education. The empirical object of this research is the proposition of the Consortium of Federal Universities from South and Southeast of Minas Gerais initiative under construction since 2010, with the consent of the Ministry of Education and the Universities Councils of seven institutions involved. This network should inaugurate academic and administrative changes in the future affiliated, as well as in its modes of regulation. To be materialized as a covenant of unprecedented scope, the Consortium will promote an unprecedented reduction of bureaucracy in the development of projects shared between federal institutions of higher education, with the integration of teaching, research and extension activities and of management procedures. In addition, the survey found that the project under construction has contributed to the spread of a new conception of university: more dynamic, more integrated, but also more aligned to external needs (from the Government, the market or the society in general). The study has as reference for mapping the context of influence of the constitution of the Consortium: i) literature about technological, political and economic transformations on the last three decades that demonstrate a tendency to social organization in the morphology of networks in all fields of human activity, including in the academic field; ii) literature about the multiregulation of educational systems, where increasingly the networks emerges as regulatory sources. We also sought to check, from the characterization of universities networks of great repercussion in the global space, the proximity and the distances between the proposition of the Consortium and some ideas and practices which are circulating internationally, such as the European Higher Education Area; the Group of Eight (Consortium of the best Australian universities); and the Latin American and Caribbean Meeting Area for Higher Education. It was found, in great measure, a convergence between the agenda of different initiatives. However, the underlying justifications are distinct: it may be regarding to a project of state that highlights the importance of education as a productive input and as element to broaden its competitiveness; or it may be regarding to a project of nation in which overcomes the prospect of education as a social right, essential to human development; or corresponding to a overlapped speech between education as a product or as public good. The research also presents a brief background of the Brazilian system of higher education, its development between the public and private sectors, and some results of national networks that stand out in defense of the interests of the public university: the National Association of Directors of Federal Institutions of Higher Education and the Forum of Leaders of Public Institutions of Higher Education of Minas Gerais. The methodology includes documentary analysis and interviews with deans of universities that integrate the proposal of the Consortium.