Master's Program
The Postgraduate Program in Geography at the Federal University of Rio Grande (PPGeo-FURG), created in 2007, aims to guarantee the training and improvement of higher-level professionals for the preparation and execution of high-level research and technical studies, with emphasis on Brazilian coastal areas. The Program's formative commitment is based on the articulation of research for the purpose of preparing master's dissertations with activities of FURG undergraduate courses, research projects and extension actions of the Program's research groups and partner institutions that qualify students for the work in multidisciplinary teams and work at different levels of education.
Located in the municipality of Rio Grande, in the coastal zone of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, and with a long history of coastal and oceanographic research that has allowed the recognition of coastal systems as an important part of the natural, economic, social and political processes that affect and produce society, FURG assumed, through resolution 014/87 of the University Council, the institutional vocation for the Coastal Ecosystem, focusing on this theme the entire Philosophy and Politics of its teaching, research and extension activities.
PPGeo-FURG arose from an initiative to teach Geography courses linked to the Geography Laboratory (GEOLAB) and related areas such as Oceanography, linked to the Geological Oceanography Laboratory (LOG) which, within the current structure of FURG, was part of the Department of Geosciences (DGEO). With the change in FURG's organizational structure in 2008 and the extinction of DGEO, PPGeo-FURG professors were assigned to the Institute of Human and Information Sciences (ICHI) and the Institute of Oceanography (IO) from FURG. Furthermore, the program has the participation of professors from the Federal University of Pelotas (UFPel) and the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). In this way, and considering the academic trajectories of its faculty, PPGeo-FURG studied the Geography of coastal zones and its related processes as an area of concentration, with PPGeo's activities organized into two lines of research: (1) systems analysis natural and environmental; and, (2) urban-regional analysis.
Goal
The main objective of PPGeo-FURG is to contribute to the training and high-level improvement, in the area of Geography and related sciences, of professionals with higher education for the preparation and execution of research and technical studies in Brazilian coastal areas, as well as for working as teachers in primary, secondary and higher education
Justification
As coastal areas are especially sensitive from an environmental point of view, as they are subject to the influence of processes that occur both in the drainage basins that affect these regions, as well as in the adjacent oceans and the atmosphere. Social production processes are generally in conflict with natural systems, producing fragile environments and unequally weakening the population's conditions of existence. The Brazilian coastal zone, in particular, has strategic importance for the country, as it contains around 70% of the national population, contributes strongly to food production through agriculture, fishing and aquaculture, is a source of energy resources and fossil minerals and renewable energy sources, is a destination for a large proportion of national and foreign tourists, has important industrial areas and transport networks, as well as numerous biodiversity preservation areas. Despite this, there are important gaps in relation to the qualification of professionals prepared to carry out studies and research in these regions using modern theoretical-methodological approaches to Geography and related sciences.