To boost internationalization, PPGSR encourages the exchange of its own faculty and students, as well as incoming international students and faculty. In addition, the program’s website is offered in English, for greater dissemination and recognition of its activities.

An important milestone was the renewal of UFRGS’s participation in CAPES’s Institutional Internationalization Program (PRINT 2021-2024), which promotes the mobility of faculty and students to foreign institutions. PPGSR also offers courses in English to attract more students from other countries and prepare its student body for bilingual work.

In the period from 2021 to 2024, several actions were carried out to strengthen the program internationalization, such as:

Exchange and Partnerships: The PPGSR maintains cooperation and exchange agreements, as well as encourages faculty and students to go abroad and has received students from other countries, such as Mozambique and Peru.

In the last four years, PPGSR has had important international interactions, despite the difficulties caused by the floods of May 2024:

• Prof. Guilherme Garcia de Oliveira carried out a post-doctorate in Lisbon, Portugal, researching the integration of remote sensing and artificial intelligence to predict floods.
• The program hosted two visiting professors: Luciana Slomp Esteves, from Bournemouth University (England), who taught a course on coastal vulnerability assessment, and Will McClintock, from the University of California (USA), who taught participatory mapping for marine spatial planning.
• There was an important visit by Prof. Robert Gilmore Pontius Jr., from Clark University (USA), a renowned researcher in spatial analysis methods and change modeling, with the support of the Fulbright Program.
• In addition, the PPGSR has maintained research cooperation in the areas of Remote Sensing and Geomorphometry with the University of Bologna (Italy) and the Technical University of Vienna (Austria).

International Scientific Production: In addition to publications in English without foreign co-authors, 15 scientific articles were published in partnership with foreign researchers in well recognized journals (indexed in Scopus). Some of these articles had a high number of citations, demonstrating the impact of the research.

International Networks and Organizations: Faculty and students from the program participate in important research networks, such as the International Charter Space and Major Disasters (applying remote sensing to disasters) and the Ibero-American Network for Integrated Coastal Management (IBERMAR).

In cooperation with the International Charter Space and Major Disasters, most space agencies and geotechnology companies provide remote sensing images on an integrated platform so that disasters in any country in the world can be quickly reported and mapped. Therefore, the program’s technical-scientific capability is also applied in emergency disaster situations, experiences that have supported research and strengthened interactions in Civil Defense organizations.

Participation in International Events: PPGSR faculty and students have presented papers at international congresses in Italy, South Africa, Austria, Mozambique and Uruguay, among other countries. Faculty has also served on the scientific committees of major international events and as editorial board members and reviewers for various foreign scientific journals.

Representation on Global Bodies: The program has representatives on important international organizations, such as the World Meteorological Organization and the International Association of Geodesy.