General Agreement, Multilateral and Additive Terms

By Adriana Luize Bocchi

The establishment of an International Cooperation Agreement or Agreement with foreign universities contributes to the promotion of the university on the international scene, granting us greater visibility, recognition and appreciation in the field of research, teaching and extension.

The main objective of the agreement is to expand and strengthen international partnerships through the exchange of professors and students, which provides for the exchange of knowledge, academic, scientific and cultural experiences.

Currently, most of the initiatives to establish an agreement have originated from requests from professors through their respective academic units. When they plan to take a doctoral course or post-doctoral internship at a foreign institution, they are faced with the requirement that, before that, an agreement or term of cooperation between the institutions must be signed, the period of validity of which can be up to 05 (five) years. Benefits resulting from the agreement:

  • Experience a better reception by the partner university community;
  • Participating in several activities carried out by the partner institution, including cultural ones;
  • Contemplate scholarships offered by the partner institution;
  • Facilitate the entry and exit of research materials from the country, since such process is intermediated by UFJ;
  • To participate in educational programs that concede double degrees;
  • Participate in student programs that offer lodging and/or meals to the foreign student, among others.

In those cases where there is already a signed Cooperation Agreement, each new work proposal presented by the academic units of UFJ must be formalized by means of an Additive Term, whose validity may extend until the final term of the general agreement. For this purpose, the Academic Unit or Graduate Program must present the Work Plan or Project (which must be registered in the UFJ systems).

On the other hand, the Multilateral Agreement contemplates the partnership between more than two (02) institutions, which may include international and also national institutions. In these types of agreements, one of them is in charge of coordinating the negotiation of the draft and collecting the signature of all the Parties to the document.

The entire process of establishment of an international agreement takes, on average, six (06) months to be concluded, including:

  • The opening of the SEI process by the professor-proponent at UFG (type "General Administration: International Agreements") and the inclusion of the necessary documentation, whose information provided will support the beginning of negotiations between the CAI and the foreign institution;
  • the negotiation of the agreement document between the CAI and the foreign institution's sector of international agreements;
  • the elaboration of the agreement in two languages (in the foreign language and in Portuguese);
  • the procedure in the SEI; and
  • the signature of all legal representatives of the parts involved in the agreement (the time it takes for the printed document to arrive from one partner institution to the other should be considered, since most agreements are still signed manually by the legal representatives of each part).

 

The request/indication of an international agreement must be sent to the CAI by the teacher-proponent, via SEI, at least 05 (five) months before the start of the activities in cooperation with the foreign partner institution. The electronic form, entitled International Cooperation Agreement, which must be filled in to start the process, requests the following information:

  • Type of agreement to be requested (General and/or additive term, Multilateral);
  • Justifications/motivations for establishing the partnership;
  • The activities to be developed in cooperation;
  • Academic Unit, graduate course/program and research area/line of the interested people;
  • Name, contacts and electronic signature of the teacher-proponent (who will provide us with information regarding the project/work to be done);
  • Name and initials of the foreign institution;
  • City and country where it is located;
  • Academic Unit, graduate course/program of the foreign institution;
  • Full names and contacts of the teacher-interlocutor and the person responsible for international agreements at the partner institution;
  • And, finally, a list of attachments to be included in the process after filling out the form.

 

To find out more about the administrative procedures adopted by UFJ to establish international agreements (the stages of the process, what is the necessary documentation, what are the attributions of each party involved, among others), access the UFG International Cooperation Agreement - Procedures.

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