About PPGCS

The Postgraduate Program in Health Sciences (PPGCS) at the Federal University of Tocantins (UFT), based at the Palmas Campus, aims to provide broad and in-depth scientific and cultural training and, above all, to promote the capacity for interdisciplinary research and innovation. Initially created within the Medical School, the PPGCS currently offers a Professional Master’s program. The Professional Master’s degree emphasizes studies and techniques directly aimed at achieving a high level of professional qualification. This emphasis is the only difference from the Academic Master’s degree. It grants the same degree and prerogatives, including the right to teach, and, like all Stricto Sensu graduate programs, the national validity of the diploma is conditioned upon the program’s prior recognition (CNE/CES Opinion 0079/2002).

The Professional Master’s program addresses a socially defined need for professional training of a nature different from that provided by the Academic Master’s program, and in no way opposes the offering and expansion of the latter. Nor does it constitute an alternative for training master’s graduates according to either simpler or more rigorous standards than those traditionally adopted in graduate education.

The regulation of the Professional Master’s degree seeks to meet the following needs:

• The need to encourage the training of professional master’s graduates qualified to develop technical-scientific activities and work on topics of public interest;
• The need to identify potential for local, regional, national, and international engagement by public and private organizations, companies, cooperatives, and non-governmental organizations, whether individually or collectively organized;
• The need to meet, particularly in areas more directly linked to the labor market and the productive system, the demand for highly qualified professionals;
• Opportunities to be explored in areas with latent demand for human resource training in Stricto Sensu graduate programs aimed at the socio-economic and cultural development of the country;
• The need for the training and preparation of researchers and professionals to increase the internal capacity for generating, disseminating, and applying scientific knowledge in the production of goods and services, in line with Brazilian industrial policy;
• The nature and specificity of the scientific and technological knowledge to be produced and reproduced;
• The social, scientific, and technological relevance of advanced professional training processes, as well as the necessary strengthening of ties between universities and the productive sector.

Technical Sheet