BRAZIL-CHILE INTERNATIONAL MASTER'S PROGRAM IN NURSING: AN UNPRECEDENTED COLLABORATION

The present issue of this journal evidences how their collaborative work enables the following Higher Education Institutions: Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC), Brazil, and the Universidad de Magallanes, (UMAG), Chile, to respond to their corresponding intrinsic social value, aiming, with this action, to achieve a more prepared and more socially cohesive population. In view of the above, in 2015 both Institutions sign a mutual collaboration agreement in order to develop the International Master's Program in Nursing - MINTER, targeted to nurses from the Magallanes and Chilean Antarctica Region, located in the southernmost end of South America.

The policies for the internationalization of education have targeted actions towards an increase in the South-South cooperation, which would characterize Horizontal International Cooperation. As a general rule, Initial International Cooperation starts with training professors, MSs, and PhDs abroad, in order for them to establish academic links and relationships with their peers in the production of research projects, in a movement of Advanced International Cooperation.1

Higher Education Institutions, especially the Post-Graduate programs, enable partnerships and, consequently, the creation and expansion of international networks among different countries, focused on improving the quality of professional training and academic production. Therefore, the internationalization of Post-Graduate Nursing has specifically become a permanent challenge in the sense of promoting, above all, a qualitative expansion of the body of researchers, emphasizing the international mobility of professors and students, good quality scientific production, and the impact on social reality.2

Since the 1990s, the Post-Graduate Program in Nursing (PEN) of the UFSC has an outstanding performance in the qualification of MSs and PhDs in Nursing through enhanced courses in the Network for the Promotion of Post-Graduate Studies in southern Brazil (REPENSUL). In this modality, it awarded 220 master and 25 doctoral degrees, as well as it introduced the creation of its own Post-Graduate programs in these poles. It is stimulating to notice that the development of Post-Graduate studies in southern Brazil is overtly due to the efforts of PEN/UFSC.3

With regard to its international solidarity, PEN/UFSC has already awarded 40 master degrees, 16 doctoral degrees, and eight post-doctoral degrees to foreign students since its creation in 1976, i.e., 64 foreign professionals have received an academic degree from PEN/UFSC so far. The commitment to the training of MSs and PhDs in Nursing, together with the desire of the UMAG to collaborate, allowed for the implementation of the Interinstitutional International Master's Program: MINTER/UFSC/UMAG, whose dissertations comprised, among other works, the articles published in this special issue of Text & Context Nursing.

It is worth highlighting that the UMAG, a higher education center with more than 50 years of history, officially created the Nursing Course on May 4^th, 1972, with the aim to offer greater opportunities to the young women of that time, since Engineering, Management, and Economy, professions that mostly attracted the interests of men, were the most developed areas in those times, together with the fact that the geopolitical and economic conditions were not favorable for the young people to leave the region and pursue their higher education.

More than four decades later, the Nursing Course is estimated to have graduated more than 1,000 nurses and states its commitment to continuing education and Post-Graduate training, in an attempt to respond to the needs for improving and potentiating knowledge on Health Care Science, thus aligning with the mission of the Health Sciences School and of the Institution as regards advanced human capital training. This contribution will allow strengthening the health policies and improving the quality standards established both in the fields of Health and of Nursing education in Chile, which will be reflected in the improvement of the performance standards related to Nursing Care.

After the entire legal and regulatory scenario was reviewed by both Institutions, the development of the UFSC-UMAG International Master's Program in Nursing begins within the premises of the Main House of our Institution, firstly by selecting of 20 female candidates who were nurses working either at health care facilities or as professors in the public and private systems, and who attended in-person classes and received guidance from the UFSC Nursing Department academic faculty for 24 months. Once the students enrolled in the Program show compliance with all the requirements, they receive their Master's degree in December 2019, awarded in a formal ceremony with the distinguished presence of the highest authorities of both Universities.

The contribution of this distinguished group of nurses to Nursing and Health knowledge at the regional, national, and American continent levels is verified from the gathering of the information they produce in their different research studies developed during the Program regarding the origins of the Course in our Institution, the meaning of health care quality at the different care levels, the safety and protection of patients/users, the meaning of the Nursing profession to patients/users, the current context of the Nursing care from the perspective of different ethnicities and from those conditions that enable a new outlook on the teaching standards and quality in the UMAG Nursing Course.

In the context described, it is observed that the research evidence from the nurses has not only been a determining factor of their individual development but also has produced social benefits, playing a pivotal role in the development of their work environments. An aspect that is much related to the Post-Graduate training of the Chilean professionals is the ability of human resource training and research to positively affect economy and society by successfully adapting to globalization and to the virtuous cycle of more developed nations; a key factor being the ability to translate research development and human capital training into innovation and, thus, having an influence on productivity. This scenario will be effectively enhanced with the continuity of the mutual cooperation ties between our Higher Education Institutions, by deepening on new research studies and with mutual support to face the new challenge of developing the PhD Program in Nursing, whose main candidates emerge from this first experience.

REFERENCES

• Morosini MC. Internacionalização na produção de conhecimento em IES Brasileiras: cooperação internacional tradicional e cooperação internacional horizontal. Educ Rev. [Internet]. 2011 [cited 2020 May 13];27(1):93-112. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1590/S0102-46982011000100005
  » https://doi.org/10.1590/S0102-46982011000100005
• Martin JG, Nascimento ERP, Andrade SR. Internationalization of Post-Graduate Nursing courses. Texto Contexto Enferm. [Internet]. 2018 [cited 2020 May 13];27(1):editorial. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1590/0104-07072018002018editorial1
  » https://doi.org/10.1590/0104-07072018002018editorial1
• Backes VMS, Brüggemann OM. The post graduate program in nursing of the Federal University of Santa Catarina: 40 years contributing to the excellence in education. Texto Contexto Enferm. [Internet]. 2016 [cited 2020 May 13];25(2):editorial. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1590/0104-0707201600452editorial
  » https://doi.org/10.1590/0104-0707201600452editorial

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  07 Oct 2020
• Date of issue
  2020