Course Proposal
Universidade Candido Mendes/UCAM (Candido Mendes University) is a privately endowed university, with educational, scientific, and management autonomy. Sociedade Brasileira de Instrução, the maintainer of the University, was founded in 1902, together with Academia de Comércio do Rio de Janeiro (Academy of Commerce of Rio de Janeiro). The former President, Rodrigues Alves, delivered it one of the first concessions of a privilege of public utility.
Its main campus is at Praça XV de Novembro, downtown of Rio de Janeiro City/Rio de Janeiro State, where, since 1902, Escola Técnica de Comercio, Faculdade de Ciencias Políticas e Econômicas do Rio de Janeiro, Faculdade de Direito Candido Mendes, Centro de Estudos Afro-Asiáticos, Centro de Memoria Social, Centro Cultura Candido Mendes, Instituto Data-Brasil – Ensino e Pesquisa, Instituto do Pluralismo Cultural, Centro de Estudos de Segurança e Cidadania, Coordenadoria de Estudos Culturais e Televisão; and Instituto Universitário de Pesquisas do Rio de Janeiro – IUPERJ have established.
Instituto Universitário de Pesquisas do Rio de Janeiro – IUPERJ was founded in 1963, being the first private research organization in Social Science, a national reference center for its field in the country.
In the 1970s, the University campus of Ipanema was launched (1972); right after, the University expanded nationally, when Campos dos Goytacazes (1975) and Nova Friburgo (1976) campuses were created.
In 1997, after meeting the requirements of the Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação Nacional/LDB (National Education Guidelines and Framework Law), the University was registered by presidential decree. The campuses of Niterói and Tijuca were established in 1998 and 1999, respectively. In 2002, the Instituto de Humanidades (Humanity Institute) was created to be a new center of transdisciplinary excellence in education, research, and extension.
In addition to graduation, UCAM pursues excellence in research by developing professional and academic master’s degrees. For that, there is the evaluation carried out by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior-Capes/MEC (Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel) that comprises the last three years:
Operations Research and Computational Intelligence – 3 – UCAM-Campos, code: 31032010003P2;
Regional Planning and City Management – 3 – UCAM-Campos, code: 31024017002P3.
Integration between Graduation and Master’s and Doctoral’s Degrees
Even though the Operations Research and Computational Intelligence Program aims at researching, it has professors that simultaneously perform activities at graduation by teaching disciplines and assisting students on their final papers. Besides, it counts on a strong focus on institutional projects, in which professors and students from graduation and master’s and doctoral’s degrees participate, in an integrated manner, in their implementation.
Regional Insertion
UCAM has been located in Campos dos Goytacazes City for more than 30 years. Currently, it offers graduation courses on Law, Business Administration, Accounting, Commercial Management Technology, Civil Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, International Relations, and Computer Science, hosting students from the North and Northwest of Rio de Janeiro and Espírito Santo States and East of Minas Gerais State. Nowadays, the University has also been offering technical and graduate distance learning. It also provides master’s degree on Operations Research and Computational Intelligence; master’s and doctoral’s degrees on City Management and Regional Planning; and lastly, Industrial Engineering.
The education in the technological area at UCAM–Campos began in 1996, with the postgraduate course in System Analysis, taught by a group of collaborating professors from the Instituto Militar de Engenharia-IME (Engineering Military Institute). In 1999, the Núcleo de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento – NPD (Development Research Center) aiming at stimulating and generating the means needed to form, develop, and consolidate the professor’s conscience committed to research and extension activities in the technological area of UCAM in Campos dos Goytacazes City. From then on, the NPD has high qualified professors, masters, and doctors committed to the applied research and technological development.
The institutional support of UCAM-Campos helped provide qualified professionals. Nowadays, the faculty of the Operations Research and Computational Intelligence Program is composed of a group of permanent Ph.D. professors, received at different and reputable universities of the country.
Located in the largest producer region of energy in the country (oil, gas, and alcohol), UCAM-Campos intends its Operations Research and Computational Intelligence Master to be an important channel of integration between the academy and the companies of that industrial sector, developing technologically relevant researches. Thus, the model chosen for the postgraduate program was the professional master’s degree.
Therefore, given the characteristics of the professional market, the course focuses on specific themes related to business demands associated with the energy sector (oil, gas, and alcohol), attending, in parallel, to solutions on relevant technological issues from other social demands.