Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina

The Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC), aware of Ordinance no. 447/2020 enacted by the State Health Department (SES), announces that on-campus learning will not be resumed in 2020, while there are still no adequate sanitary and epidemiological conditions that can guarantee the safety of the university community.

Bearing in mind the university autonomy, guaranteed by the Constitution, as well the Ordinance no. 544/2020 enacted by the Ministry of Education, and based on current studies carried out by its scientific community, UFSC will be favoring remote learning, which will be regulated according to the University Council’s decision scheduled for 17 July.

Any resumption will be done gradually, cautiously and respectfully. The university will not resume in-classroom learning before an effective vaccine or medication is available to everyone. We are more than 40 million people at UFSC, a population that would certainly have a major impact on public health systems if on-campus classes were resumed without the proper epidemiological indications. Therefore, there is no expected date for on-campus return.

UFSC Central Administration

Read the original announcement here. 

The Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC) was ranked 15th overall among the 30 Brazilian Universities which participated in the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings 2020. The Impact Rankings assess universities against the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations 2030 Agenda. This was the first time that UFSC participated in the ranking, and it was ranked 301-400th worldwide.

The Times Higher Education Impact Rankings uses carefully calibrated indicators to provide comparisons across three broad areas: research, outreach and stewardship. In 2020, the list includes 768 universities from 85 countries. In the Overall Ranking, the University of Auckland, in New Zealand, had the best performance, followed by the University of Sydney and the Western Sydney University, both in Australia. Among the Brazilian universities, the Universidade de São Paulo (USP) had the best performance.

Score

A university’s final score in the overall ranking is calculated by combining its score in SDG 17 with the score in three other SDGs selected by the institution. The SDG 17 ‒ Partnerships for the Goals looks at the broader ways in which universities support the SDGs through collaboration with other countries, the promotion of best practices and the publication of data. It accounts for 22% of the overall score, while the other SDGs carry a weight of 26% each. This means that different universities are scored based on a different set of SDGs.

Among Brazilian Universities, regarding performance against SDG 17, UFSC was ranked 17th. In the SDG 3 ‒ Good Health and Well-Being, it was ranked 10th; in the SDG 4 ‒ Quality Education, it got the 7th place; and in the SDG 12 ‒ Responsible Consumption and Production, it had the 5th best performance in the country.

See the complete ranking results here.

For further information about UFSC’s participation, access the UFSC Sustentável website.

Last Friday, 29 May, the Central Administration of the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC) has announced that the university’s in-person academic and administrative activities will remain suspended. According to the Normative Ordinance no. 364/2020/GR, the suspension is now for an indefinite period, but a deadline of 30 days has been set for the university to decide on the continuity of the 2020-1 semester and on the rearrangement of the academic activities.

“Our intention is to act in accordance with the state and federal decrees, which is why the extension is for an indefinite period”, explains the Rector Ubaldo Cesar Balthazar. “However, we have urgency in making decisions about the academic calendar, as our community waits for answers, so we have set a 30-day deadline for the University Council to reach an agreement, and I hope that these decisions will come out before that deadline.”

Until 30 June, the university will complete diagnostics, collect data and produce indicators that shall demonstrate full conditions for the implementation of alternatives to the regular teaching activities, at all levels and of all types, on all UFSC campuses, based on the work of committees and subcommittees, and will produce a regulation to be evaluated by the relevant bodies and approved by the University Council.

According to the Ordinance no. 364/2020, teaching activities at all levels and of all types are suspended indefinitely, except for those which were already carried out remotely (full-time distance learning courses). Any other in-person academic activities, such as defenses, recruitment examinations and meetings, as well as the in-person technical and administrative activities, except for health, security and other urgent and essential services, remain suspended on all UFSC campuses.