Lecture by Professor Sandra Goulart Almeida
Important voice in Brazil’s higher education landscape
- 18.12.2025
What significance does higher education have in Latin America, and Brazil in particular? What challenges does it face? These and other questions will be answered on 15 January 2026 by Professor Sandra Regina Goulart Almeida, a renowned expert in Brazil’s higher education landscape. She will be speaking at the College for Social Sciences and Humanities by invitation from the UA Ruhr liaison office for Latin America. Registration is open now via https://eveeno.com/941392475 for anyone who wishes to attend the event in Essen (5–7 pm).
Professor Goulart Almeida, President of the Universidad Federal de Minas Gerais in Brazil (UFMG), will be delivering a lecture entitled ‘International Cooperation, Inclusion and Democracy in Higher Education in Brazil and Latin America’, in which she will discuss the influence of international cooperation on the higher education landscape in Latin America.
A professor of English and Comparative Literatures, Sandra Goulart Almeida looks back on a career of longstanding commitment to promoting academic excellence and global engagement: following her tenure as Dean for International Affairs, she served as Vice President of her university from 2014 to 2018. She also coordinates the Commission for International Relations of the Association of Federal University Presidents (ANDIFES) and advises the state funding agency FAPEMIG as a member of its Board of Trustees. She also represents UFMG in the World University Network (WUN).
As a researcher, her focus areas include feminist literature and she brings the topics of gender equality and inclusion into her work in higher education policy. Professor Goulart Almeida delivered the keynote speech on academic freedom as part of the opening ceremony of the UA Ruhr Liaison Office Latin America this summer. On the same occasion, the UA Ruhr universities signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Universidad Federal de Minas Gerais.
In the picture (from left to right): Prof. Dr. Eduardo Zancul (University of São Paulo), Prof. Dr. Barbara Albert (University of Duisburg-Essen), Prof. Dr. Sandra Almeida (University of Minas Gerais), Prof. Dr. Gerhard Schembecker (TU Dortmund), Prof. Dr. Martin Paul (Ruhr University Bochum), Prof. Dr. Kornelia Freitag (Ruhr University Bochum) in June 2025.
Further information:
https://www.uni-due.de/2025-06-13-university-alliance-ruhr-opening-ceremony-brazil-office