In fact, in 2003, the Professional Master's Degree in Planning and Public Policy of the State University of Ceará was created. It was attended by a Public Service and civil society organizations, studying the historical relationship between the public and the private sector. The existence of this Course has sought to adapt to the highlight in recent years for the study of public policies and the challenges of the constitution of a Democratic State of Law.
In the scope of the postgraduate course, there is the idea in which research activities should seek cooperation and institutional exchange, seeking the excellence and interdisciplinarity necessary for its internationalization. The Professional Master in Planning and Public Policy, following such understanding, represented an academic effort to rescue a social debt of the University with the socio-political development of the regional population and, more specifically, the population of Ceará.
This program arose from the need to meet a demand, from the State of Ceará, to provide this region with agile mechanisms to promote the recovery of the enormous regional disparity in the training of high level personnel of qualification and academic production. What has been developed is contributing both to the expansion of local intelligence and to a critical mass capable of securing the human resources necessary for the socio-political development of the State in the formulation and implementation of public policies. Its experience is recognized regionally and demanded by the most distinguished institutions of the North and Northeast of Brazil.
Its relationship with CAPES, until 2017, was with the Sociology Committee. However, the Sociology and Political Science Committees, together with the Course Coordination, have come to the conclusion that it should be linked, from 2018, to the Political Science Committee.
The positive results - expressed in about 400 dissertations defended, in grade 5 in CAPES evaluation process, in the demand for agreements from several state and federal universities and broad social insertion - are demanding a deepening of their training experience. The national diagnoses, the demands of the Master graduates and the regional demands point to the need for a doctorate in Public Policy.
The National Postgraduate Plan 2011-2020 (PNPG) opened space for innovative experiences in the field of professional training, articulating this conjunctural need of the Country with the reality of its academic institutions: the experience MPPPP has and the support of teachers and researchers with high qualification in the area of political science of the Federal University of Ceará, allowed the formation of a team capable of proposing a Doctoral Program in Public Policies of the State University of Ceará (UECE).
The entry of political scientists with specific production in the area, experience in other programs, participation in new research groups and international insertion, ensured the critical mass necessary to the challenges of a doctorate as it is now.
In addition to such a group of teachers, a structure was found that could meet the new institutional challenges: research groups and structured laboratories; consolidated social insertion network; updated databases; computerized structure; printed and digital journals with good national and international insertion; distance education system; virtual libraries; sector of visual production, radio and digital TV.
This doctorate, therefore, has as its goal the formation of a nucleus of excellence that will be born strong and consolidated. The theoretical and empirical basis of UFC political scientists integrated to the theoretical and practical experience of planning and evaluation of UECE professionals is a milestone in the relationship between university institutions and in the political and administrative world of the region.
The Doctorate in Public Policy was created by the Resolution of CEPE No. 3924 and of CONSU Nº 1206, of the State University of Ceará, on May 6 of this year and was recommended by CAPES in 2016. Its first group began in 2017.