Federal University of ABC (UFABC, Brazil) was born in 2006 rooted in an innovative interdisciplinary pedagogical plan. It has no departments, fostering interaction between academic members from different backgrounds. Moreover, undergraduate freshmen are admitted into Interdisciplinary Bachelor’s Degrees, in Science and Technology (BC&T) and Science and Humanities (BC&H). At the core of the interdisciplinary experiences, students can enjoy the flexibility and freedom to build their academic pathways throughout the programs offered by the university, thus behaving as entrepreneurs of their own careers. Our main goal is to enhance independent thinking and risk-taking.
At UFABC, social inclusion is practiced both as an act of responsibility and reduction of inequality, as an active process of identification and development of talents, encouragement of diversity and plurality of ideas. From an inclusive perspective, and in its various levels, Education requires an interdisciplinary approach, involving different dimensions: political, legal, economic, cultural, technological and social. It is the responsibility, especially of public education, to embrace and support inclusive education, to develop accessibility and overcome several barriers that prevent equal opportunities: architectural, communicational, informational, methodological, instrumental, programmatic, and especially the attitudinal one.
The Federal University of ABC (UFABC, Brazil) was born in 2006 based on an innovative interdisciplinary pedagogical plan. It has no departments, forcing interaction among academic members from different backgrounds. Also, undergraduate freshmen are admitted into Interdisciplinary BAcademic excellence is one of the conceptual foundations of UFABC. Interdisciplinarity contributes to academic excellence, which is in turn a condition for social inclusion. Excellence is a fundamental characteristic to be fostered in a higher education institution which aims to achieve high levels of quality in teaching, research and outreach. The culture of academic excellence focused on the knowledge production is at the core of UFABC, with interdisciplinarity as a decisive element for the construction of a model that allows academic and curricular flexibility with high quality standards. achelor’s Degrees, in Science & Technology and Humanities. At the core of the interdisciplinary experiences, students can enjoy the flexibility to build their pathways throughout the programs offered by the university, thus behaving as entrepreneurs of their own academic careers. Our main goal is to enhance independent thinking and courage to take risks.
At UFABC, the purpose of internationalization is to integrate the university into the academic excellence world, targeting to become a world-class university. Connected to a strong emphasis in scientific research, UFABC has been acclaimed by its high quality education and high internationalization levels. In the last years also international rankings started to pay attention to us. The results and lessons learned so far are encouraging and might be followed and improved by other universities in the world.
Brazil is an amazing country […]. The University changed the image of this area, people are open-minded […]. People helped me, they wanted to do projects with me, it was really cool.”
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Av. dos Estados, 5001. Bairro Santa Terezinha. Santo André - SP - Brasil
ri@ufabc.edu.br