The post-graduation program of Brazilian Nursing completes forty years: developments, challenges and the need of new investments to improve it

EDITORIAL

The post-graduation program of Brazilian Nursing completes forty years: developments, challenges and the need of new investments to improve it

Carmen Gracinda Silvan Scochi^I; Denize Bouttelet Munari^II

^IProfessora Titular do Departamento de Enfermagem Materno-Infantil e Saúde Pública da Escola de Enfermagem de Ribeirão Preto da Universidade de São Paulo/USP - Coordenadora Área Enfermagem/CAPES 2011/2013, Ribeirão Preto, SP, Brasil. [e-mail]

^IIProfessora Titular da Faculdade de Enfermagem da Universidade Federal de Goiás. Coordenadora Adjunta Área Enfermagem/CAPES 2011/2013, Goiânia, GO, Brasil. [e-mail]

Forty years ago it was created in Brazil, the first post-graduation program stricto sensu in the Nursing area, starting the first master course in 1972, on the Escola de Enfermagem Anna Nery ( Nursing School) , at Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (Federal University located in Rio de Janeiro). Exactly ten years later (1982) started the first PhD course in Nursing followed by an Inter-units Program of Doctorate, through a partnership between two units from Universidade de São Paulo (USP – São Paulo University), the Nursing School in the city of São Paulo and the Nursing School in the city of Ribeirão Preto. And ten years ago, in 2002, started first Master Professional in Nursing Care Program, under the responsibility of the Nursing School Aurora de Afonso Costa at the Universidade Federal Fluminense. In this historical moment, we have a lot to celebrate and reflect on the obstacles already overcome by the Nursing in Brazil, in order to build new goals, facing new challenges for growth and expansion.

Throughout these four decades, Brazilian researchers have worked tirelessly reaching nowadays, 83 post-graduation courses approved by the Coordination of Improvement for Education Graduated Personnel – CAPES (45 academic masters, 27 doctorates and 11 professional masters), bounded to 58 programs (20 with academic masters only, 25 masters and doctorate mixed, 2 with doctorate only and 11 professional masters). The Post-Graduation in Nursing Programs (PPGEnf) have been graduating new researchers for all Brazil, Latin America, Mexico, Angola, among others countries, which guaranteed the expansion of the Brazilian post-graduation courses.

The visibility of the post-graduation in Nursing is also being built to increase the number of courses and PPGEnf, besides, and mainly by the consolidation in graduating qualified human resources, in research and in intellectual production. This consolidation is reflected in the 523 research groups registered in the Directory of Research Groups of the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development – CNPq, in the 165 Research Grants from CNPq,at 5.194 articles published in the triennium 2007-2009 with visible improvement in the classification of journals, with four Brazilian journals of Nursing indexed in the Web Science in 2010 and, finally, with the achievement of four programs with nine grades 5 and 6, respectively, with levels of national and international excellence.

We emphasize on this process, especially the large investment made by the academic community represented by the coordinators, the students on this program, besides the relevant work done by the Nursing Area Coordinators at CAPES, which dedicated years of work in growth management, expansion and quality to PPGEnf.

This movement enabled in all states of the federation, the implementation of nursing education on a stricto sensu level, but the challenges and needs are still big to consolidate the science of Nursing in our country.

The first of them refers to the need to break the endogenous and the reduction of the asymmetries, considering the efforts that must be made to the development of west-center and north region, ensuring the quality and the sustainability of PPGEnf, aligned with the National Postgraduate - PNPG 2011-2020 and the National Agenda of Priorities in Health Research^{(1-2) .}

The second challenge is related to the need in creating centers of excellence in teaching and research with an international standard level ⁽¹⁾, able to break down the barriers of higher education, to contribute effectively with the movement of innovation in health, focusing on the needs in human resources for technological development and the innovation at the enterprises, and also for the challenge in articulating with a solid posture, the post-graduation with the priorities of the Health System⁽¹⁾.

The other challenge to the growth of scientific production according to the guidelines provided by organizations / national and international agencies, and to the policies on science, technology and innovation, and the National Agenda of Priorities in Health Research^(1-2). This process also requires from the researchers bolder actions and development of entrepreneurship to be used as a tool in order to make more visible the scientific investigations of Nursing, with products that can be more efficient to improve the Nursing practice and produce new ways of care and management in health.

In that direction also urges, an increase in research projects that promote the innovation, focused in transferring the results of this research to health services, aligned with the health public polices towards to the consolidation of the Unified Health System – SUS, promoting the quality of life through excellence in Nursing care.

Alert to the current scenario and with the intention to consolidate the work from the Nursing Area Coordination at CAPES, the current management team (2011-2013) has as a proposal for guidance and orientation of PPGEnf, implement and strengthen the culture of self-assessment in PPGEnf, as a way to make them stronger in their own autonomy and self-management.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  13 June 2012
• Date of issue
  June 2012