Interinstitutional Academic Partnerships

Partnership with Portuguese Universities

In Portugal, several contacts were established with the aim of formalizing agreements with institutions such as the University of Minho, the Polytechnic Institute of Leiria, and the University of Coimbra.

At the University of Minho, the first contact involved Professor João Sarmento and pointed to the possibility of a partnership with UFC and UFPR. Although an attempt was made to implement this collaboration in 2013, to date the intended exchanges of researchers and the development of research in the field of Urban and Cultural Geography have not yet materialized.

With the Polytechnic Institute of Leiria, an agreement was signed in 2012 under the responsibility of Professor Maria da Graça Mouga Poça Santos, representing the Research Center on Identity(ies) and Diversity(ies).

The University of Coimbra formalized an agreement in 2013, linked to the Integrated Watershed Management Project. Within this framework, joint activities were carried out between the two institutions. At the end of 2011 and beginning of 2012, a PPGGeo graduate student completed a sandwich PhD at the University of Coimbra, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Lúcio José Sobral da Cunha.

In 2013, strengthening this connection, contact was established with Professor Santana, a specialist in Health Geography, which enabled, in 2014, the reception of three doctoral students to partially fulfill their academic requirements at this institution.

In 2015, at the Institute of Geography and Spatial Planning (IGOT) of the University of Lisbon, PhD candidate Tiago Estevam Gonçalves carried out a sandwich doctorate in Urban Geography, under the supervision of Prof. Herculano Alberto Pinho Cachinho. During the same period, PhD candidate Gledson Magalhães also engaged in academic activities at the institution.

In Portugal, during the 2021–2024 evaluation period, scientific cooperation activities of the UFC Graduate Program in Geography (PPGGeo/UFC) were intensified with the University of Lisbon and the University of Coimbra.

At the University of Lisbon, both research projects and faculty exchange programs have been consolidated. In research, a joint grant was provided by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) and FUNCAP (Brazil) from 2017 to 2021 for the development of the GRAMPCITY project, dedicated to studying population aging in Lisbon and Fortaleza. The project was coordinated by Professors Nuno Costa (University of Lisbon) and Eustógio Dantas (PPGGeo/UFC), resulting in two defended master’s dissertations supervised by Prof. Clélia Costa and Prof. Eustógio Dantas, as well as the international event Aging in the Metropolis in 2022, with the participation of Professors Nuno Costa and Eduarda Costa.

In terms of faculty mobility, notable participation includes Prof. Vladia Oliveira’s involvement in the Erasmus+ AMIGOS Program, linked to the University of Lisbon and articulated with the REALP network, which enabled her participation as a lecturer at the Ecology of Semi-Arid Zones Workshop in 2023.

At the University of Coimbra, partnerships have been developed since 2018, with emphasis on the participation of Prof. José da Silva in the Summer Course of the Iberian Studies Center, currently in its 23rd edition, coordinated by Prof. Rui Jacinto (University of Coimbra) and Prof. María Isabel Martín Jiménez (University of Salamanca). During the current evaluation period, Professors José da Silva, Eustógio Dantas, and Alexandre Pereira contributed presentations (in remote format) at the 2023 event, with the papers subsequently published in the conference proceedings. In 2024, works authored by Professors Eustógio Dantas and José da Silva were selected for publication in the journal Iberografia, currently in press.

Partnership with Swedish Universities

The partnership initiated in the previous evaluation period was expanded in the current cycle through the project developed in collaboration with the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI), under the overall coordination of Jorge Amorim and regional coordination of Prof. Elisa Zanella. Funded by the Copernicus Climate Change Services program of SMHI between 2019 and 2021, the project TropiCool – Green Infrastructure in Tropical Cities for Reducing Heat Stress and Adapting to Climate Change involved the participation of PPGGeo/UFC faculty and students, as well as researchers from FUNCEME and SEUMA, in cooperation with Swedish partners.

As part of this collaboration, an international colloquium was held in 2023 with the participation of researchers Jorge Amorim, Heiner Körnich, Isabel Ribeiro, David Segersson, Susanna Hagelin, and Lars Gidhagen.