Abstract:

Knowledge is considered the generator of wealth in the contemporary world. Generate knowledge is an essential backup plan to explore the economic momentum (Holsworth 2010).

Universities play a significant role in this regard (Leisyte and Horta 2011; Pinheiro and Pillay 2016) as they have been recognized as spaces for knowledge creation and the transfer of scientific knowledge (Junior and Oliveira 2016). For centuries the new scientific knowledge has been produced, validated and disseminated mainly by them (Havas 2009; Chang 2008; Tan 2016).

Universities are also impacted by the notions of knowledge and knowledge production which have been intensively discussed, due to the new actors’ role of producing, disseminating, using and validating knowledge (Havas 2009; Dhamdhere 2015; Boyd and Horta 2011). On the other hand, they have faced some internal and external difficulties which prevent the knowledge to be available to the community, as per example: the lack of space, costs of documents, employees, the pressure of publishers and publishers for exclusivity, among others (Junior and Oliveira 2016).

The communication of the scientific knowledge is considered a strategic resource and one of the most fundamental processes for its dissemination and use, contributing for teaching and research (Junior and Oliveira 2016; Christiano et al. 2016). Some models for scientific communication have emerged and are seeking to make this knowledge available such as institutional and thematic repositories, open access journals, and the Movement for Open Access to Scientific Information.

Considering that the graduate courses and programs, especially doctorates, have an impact on the knowledge creation, this article proposes to present an overview of the graduate courses offered in Brazil and, besides, focussing on the Education Area.

It adopts an inductive process as a research strategy and an exploratory methodological approach through the analysis of a secondary public and official data source provided by the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES ), a foundation linked to the Brazilian Ministry of Education (MEC) between the years of 2010 and 2015. Its uses descriptive statistics analysis in the time series datasets.

A total of 475 (N=100%) institutions’ data were analyzed, through the studied period, englobing universities and foundations, study and research centers, associations, among others. The preliminary results demonstrate that most of the graduate courses are concentrated in the southeast Brazilian region and delivered by the public institutions (80%). The higher education institutions also offer most of the scholarships (77.9%).

In the Education Area, the total number of courses has increased from 98 in 2010 to 170 in 2016, most in the southeast, south and northeast regions. The professional master is the one which proportionally has increased the most. Doctorates, which have an influence on the knowledge creation, has increased from 51 in 2010 to 74 in 2016.

Its contribution shall provide an overview of the field as a whole, in a temporal perspective, evaluating the Graduate Courses already offered and allowing to plan and prospect the future.

Keywords:

Higher Education, Graduate Programs, Higher Education System, Scholarships.