Since its establishment in 2011, PPGEISU has sought partnerships with knowledge institutions sharing the thematic area of the program and bolstering academic and scientific credibility. On the international scene, EISU has taken the initial steps towards a collaboration program with the University of Coimbra and the University of Lisbon, evident in bilateral visits in 2011 and 2013. In the second semester of 2014, the vice-rector of the University of Coimbra, Margarida Mano, conducted a course as a visiting professor on management of higher education institutions. As a result of this partnership, PPGEISU signed an international cooperation with the Center for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra (Portugal) in the Abdias Nascimento Academic Development Program in 2018. This agreement enabled Joint Research Projects between Brazilian and Foreign Institutions with Split-site Undergraduate and Ph.D. programs (SECADI/CAPES PUBLIC NOTICE n. 02/2014) under the project “Democratização do acesso e justiça cognitiva na educação superior: a contribuição dos estudos pós-coloniais portugueses para a avaliação das ações afirmativas brasileiras” (democratization of access and cognitive justice in higher education: the contribution of Portuguese postcolonial studies to the assessment of Brazilian affirmative action).
This cooperation project prescribes work and study missions, carried out in cooperation between three Brazilian universities (the Federal University of Bahia, University of Recôncavo da Bahia, and the Federal University of Viçosa) and two Portuguese universities (the University of Coimbra and the University of Lisbon). The project aims to evaluate the expansion of access to Brazilian higher education institutions with the perspective of the cognitive justice concept for sustainability. Out of the 13 teachers participating in the project, four are from EISU, coordinated by Prof. Sonia Maria Rocha Sampaio. In 2020, Professor Maria Beatriz Barreto Carmo had a postdoctoral internship booked at the Center for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra, but due to the Covid-19 pandemic, her research had to be postponed. In 2019, an international cooperation agreement was signed between the Federal University of Bahia and the University of Kansas (USA), for the creation of the Global Humanities Institute, together with the University of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) and the University of Cheikh Anta Diop (Senegal), funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Three EISU professors take part in this project: Maria Thereza Ávila Dantas Coelho, Adriana Miranda Pimentel, and Maria Beatriz Barreto do Carmo. The objective of the Global Humanities Institute is to develop research and education initiatives that influence how children and young people live, focusing on aspects related to mental health, with real repercussions in the health, well-being, and quality of lives of people in black communities around the world. In 2020, a three-day Pre-Meeting of the Global Humanities Institute happened online to set up the Institute’s strategic planning, assembling researchers from the four universities above under the leadership of researchers from UFBA. Initially scheduled to be a face-to-face event at UFBA, this pre-meeting had to occur in a virtual environment due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Our intellectual production occurs through cooperation with foreign researchers and is also linked to the projects mentioned above. PPGEISU has actively promoted its internationalization via exchange programs at the master’s level, doctoral internships for alumni, post-doctoral research for professors in foreign universities, having students and professors organizing and attending international scientific events, publishing research articles and book chapters in international books and journals, taking part of the editorial board of international journals and publishers, organizing receptions of foreign professors to teach. In 2017, professor Flávia Goulart Mota Garcia Rosa received the medal and diploma of Recognition for University Editor, granted by the International University Book Fair – Finuli, organized in Mexico City. In 2019, the work presented by alumnus Solange Dias Alcocer took second place and won an award in the poster exhibition at the 2nd International Congress on Health and Spirituality.
