This text introduces the communications presented during the opening session of the IX South-east Regional Meeting on Research, held at the University of São Carlos in July 2009. Initially, it emphasizes the importance of the debate on Brazilian postgraduate studies, in terms of the production of qualified research and the importance of that evaluation conducted by the CAPES. It questions the dilemma which it faces at present: what are the limits imposed by the necessary bureaucratization and the democratic liberty to seek to achieve their own ultimate ends. That is, what are the possibilities of conciliation between bureaucratic management, inherent to the system, and democratic management, demanded by university autonomy? It affirms that the tension revealed by the debate should be understood from this perspective.
postgraduate studies; research; evaluation