Capes tries to replace coordinators quickly and is criticized by the scientific community

The new public notice from Capes (Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel) to define the coordinators of scientific areas worries entities linked to science. Requests to amend the document have already been made, but the agency has not given a positive response to them. According to the entity, the selection process took place in a stable, rigorous manner and with respect for everyone’s opinion.

The coordinators of major scientific areas are important positions for representing the scientific community at Capes. They are also essential for the functioning of the four-year evaluation of graduate programs, a mechanism that indicates the grades of master’s and doctoral courses across the country.

In total, there are 49 areas that cover different fields of scientific knowledge. The choice of area coordinators is based on public notices published by Capes. The last of them dates from September 1st – this document that is the subject of criticism.

One of the points is the speed of the referral process. Since the launch of the public notice, graduate programs, scientific societies and associations related to graduate studies nationwide had until September 12 to submit up to five nominations of names for the areas of knowledge.

“It’s an extremely short term”, says Edson D’almonte, professor at the Faculty of Communication at Ufba (Federal University of Bahia) and current coordinator in the area of ​​communication and information.

On Wednesday (14), Capes began to notify the nominees. They have until next Monday (19) to send a series of documents to the agency, including a work plan for the more than four years they have worked as coordinators.

The two deadlines are different from other processes that have already taken place. For comparison purposes, a letter from Foprop (National Forum of Pro-Rectors for Research and Graduate Studies) says that, in the last process that took place in 2017, graduate programs had 16 days to make their nominations and names. chosen had the same deadline to send their work plans.

“There’s no need [desse prazo]”, says D’almonte.

Scientific entities are also concerned with a second point. In the public notice, Capes allows researchers to carry out autonomous applications for the position of coordinator. That is, without going through the indication made by graduate programs or academic entities.

A letter signed by 17 current coordinators was sent this Thursday (15th) to the presidency and evaluation board of Capes. In it, the authors state that the candidacy of an autonomous nature “delegitimizes the community itself in terms of the necessary process of consolidating names within the group itself”.

Another reason for criticism from the scientific community is the period of work of the coordinators. According to the new public notice, the future coordinators will work from December 2022 to March 2026. However, the next four-year evaluation must be completed in 2025 and, therefore, the managements should also end in that year.

For D’almonte, there is a lack of explanations as to why these measures were adopted in the new public notice. “There was no justification,” he says. The coordinator also defends the review of the public notice by Capes.

change request

The matter had repercussions among several entities linked to science, as in reviews published by the Brazilian Society for the Progress of Science (SBPC) and by the Forum of Human, Social, Applied Social Sciences, Linguistics, Letters and Arts (FCHSSALLA).

Within Capes itself, coordinators also took actions. Last Monday (5), a meeting was held with the evaluation board of the agency to discuss the points of the public notice. A day later, the board responded by email to requests for changes to the public notice.

“The presidency of Capes, after becoming aware of your arguments regarding the change in the public notice […]decided to keep the document unchanged”, says the evaluation director of the agency in an email to which the Sheet had access.

Capes, in response to the report, states that all 49 areas participated with the nomination of names for the next management of coordinators. “The academic community also contributed for these elections to take place with total transparency”, he adds.

The organ affirms that the electoral process of the new coordinators took place in a stable, rigorous way and with respect to everyone’s opinion. “For CAPES, it is (sic) a completed matter.”