Ph.D. Funding
The Ph.D. degree in Automation and Systems Engineering offers strong background and expertise for research in this area. A solid background is developed from a broad range of graduate level courses to be successfully accomplished by a candidate, with a requirement of a minimum of 12 credits in course work. The expertise knowledge should be focused on the specific topic to be pursued in the Ph.D. research. The course plan should be submitted by the candidate and the advisor together with the application form, and further examined by the admissions committee. The graduate level courses are offered for Master’s and Ph.D. students, without distinction, however self-study can be proposed as one of the following courses: Advanced Study Topics in Automation and Systems Engineering; Supervised Study in Automation and Systems Engineering.
The research and human-resource development initiatives conducted by the faculty and researchers affiliated to the Graduate Program in Automation and Systems Engineering have received financial support from research funding agencies, national and international, and also companies. Some of these initiatives are reported below.
In recent years, the faculty of the Graduate Program have participated in a number of projects with support from national funding research agencies, including CAPES, CNPq and FINEP. Some projects funded by these agencies are:
- Protem Program (ProTem/RNP, ProTem-CC) and PRONEX;
- Diverse projects that received funding from CNPq’a call for proposal (Universal, CT-Info, CT-Petro);
- Individual and integrated CNPq projects;
- Pojects from FINEP/FUNTTEL, FINEP/RNP and the Millennium Institute from MCT;
- National cooperation projects (PROCAD-CAPES) and international cooperation projects (CAPES-COFECUB, CAPES-DAAD, CAPES-MECD, CNRS-CNPq).
Some faculty members have obtained funding from international agencies of countries that are members of the European Union (IST Programs), as part of their participation in cooperation projects with academic institutions of these countries. The funding is in the form of capital investment, consumable items, and scholarships for undergraduate and graduate students.
More details about the recent projects that the faculty is involved with can obtained directly from the faculty.
Since 2001, the Department of Automation and Systems Engineering coordinates the PRH-34 Program from the Brazilian Agency of Oil, Gas, and Biofuels (ANP). The program is denominated “aciPG – Human Resources in Engineering for Automation, Control and Instrumentation in the Oil and Gas Industry,” which has the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Department of Chemical Engineering as partners. This Program has two focus areas: graduate and undergraduate level. With respect to the Graduate Program in Automation and Systems Engineering, the program is granted two scholarships at the Master’s level and one scholarship at the Ph.D. level, with additional funding for the associated research.
For its relevance, it should be mentioned the Roboturb project which involved several members of the faculty body in Automation and Systems Engineering. The project started in 1999. It received funding for the first phase (1999-2001) from PADCT-Finep and Copel. For the second phase (2001-2003) the funding was from RHAE-MCT. For the third phase (2003-2005), funding was provided by FURNAS. Funding for the fourth phase is being negotiated with ANEE. The funding is in the form of capital investment, consumable items, services, and scholarships at various levels.
Since December 2004, the Department of Automation and Systems Engineering is participating of the CATI Program from MCT, with the aim of performing research with enterprises in software sector to benefit from the governmental investment, particularly Brascontrol and WEG Automation. The department has been received funding from the companies in various forms.
According with program statistic, the total funding received for the year of 2015 by the Department of Automation and Systems Engineering, and the Graduate Program in Automation and Systems Engineering, considering only investments from businesses if of the order of R$ 1,120,000, of which R$ 370,000 (33%) in capital, R$ 340,000 (30,4%) in consumable and services, and R$ 410,000 (36,6%) in scholarships.
