CAPES (Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel) published new rules for graduate scholarships in Brazil. With the new regiment, students will have access to more benefits and will be able to carry out remunerated activities.
Announced in Ordinance No. 133/2023 of the Official Gazette, the change comes to facilitate the permanence of graduate students in higher education programs.
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Since 2010, students were only entitled to a benefit from a public agency to promote education. In addition, the student was also not allowed to formally engage in a remunerated activity. That is, it was not allowed to work and receive government student aid during the graduate course.
The new determination expands the access and permanence of scholarship holders, as well as offering more autonomy to educational institutions so that they can establish rules compatible with their academic communities.
Graduate scholarships in the new CAPES standard
The main changes in the new postgraduate scholarship format are: the possibility of accumulating scholarships, the release for paid activity and the autonomy granted to universities and teaching programs higher.
However, CAPES maintained the rule that does not allow having “more than one scholarship at the same level — master's, doctorate or postdoctoral — financed with federal resources", which includes the Foundation itself and the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq). According to the CAPES statement, the new resolution is expected to attract people who are already working.
For Mercedes Bustamante, president of CAPES, the possibility of having people who are already in the market of work is a way to build new relationships between the academic world and other sectors of society.
The federal government believes that this is also an incentive for researchers in the North, Northeast and Midwest. This occurs because they will be able to combine CAPES assistance with the complement of another organization, such as FAP (State Research Support Foundation).
The same document also announced that universities and graduate programs will have autonomy to determine their own regulations. In this way, they can structure rules that meet the local demands of their academic communities.
