History of the programme
The Master’s Degree in Design of the University of the Region of Joinville (PPGDesign/Univille) is the result of the 23-year-old experience of the Undergraduate Program in Design of Univille, a programme known by its excellence in teaching, graduating qualified professionals to act in the Brazilian market.
Due to the economic characteristics of the city, when the Post-Graduation Programme in Design of Univille was created, there was an agreement to approach the design not only in terms of the product, but also of the services. Therefore, a room for capacitation of professionals in the field of design was created, emphasizing the solution of complex problems in a systemic way. Other characteristic inherent to the structure of the proposal is based on the knowledge exchange involving the PPGDesign/Univille and the private, public, and third-sector contexts, aiming to the execution of the professional nature of the program.
The proposal of PPGDesign/Univille was developed based on the analysis of the inductive politics of CAPES, and on the available orientation to the elaboration of professional programs, in the institutional and regional environments. The Design and Sustainability concentration area and its fields of research and technical-scientific practice differ from the academic stricto sensu programs by their topics and emphasis. However, at the same time, transdisciplinary relations that make all of them strong are stablished. The professional nature of PPGDesign/Univille is distinct from the proposal of the academic programs by:
(1) the commitment to the knowledge exchange to private, public, and third-sector contexts;
(2) the pedagogical structure highly supported on the subject integration, as well as on the technological and scientific practice with organizations from the region;
(3) the emphasis on the professional and technological capacitation, which reflects on the approach of the subjects and the graduation final projects.
Over its history, the PPGDesign/Univille was part of internal (Univille) and external (CAPES) actions, focusing on the Guidelines of the National Post-Graduation Plan, on politics of technical-scientific knowledge production and on the consequent institutional positioning before the scenario. The current and inductive topics are constantly debated, analyzed, and incorporated as constructors of the basis of reflections and actions of the program and they have repercussion on the continuous upgrade process. The PPGDesign/Univille tries to meet these needs and demands with the skilling of the workforce.
The Design and Sustainability concentration area of PPGDesign/Univille aims to qualify the professionals over topics that involve the development of products and services in the private, public, and third-sector environments, besides the design process management, scope in which sustainability goes beyond the fabrication process, costs, selling, etc. Based on this understanding, the product/system/service is part of a wider conception than simply the use, the aesthetics and even the economy.
With the maturing of the program and its continuous actions related to the program planning, the PPGDesign/Univille was restructured in 2016. The main objective was to reinforce the alignment of activities and articulations of the projects based on the content analysis. The process involved the analysis of the teaching staff’s technical-scientific productions (2013-2016), as well as the students’ ones. The analysis was based on three fundamental questions: what have we produced? Who have we qualified? Who are the people involved? This study had the objective to verify the alignment of the faculty and the graduate ones’ skills, besides the coherence of the program proposal with its main participants.