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The regulation of Graduate Programs in Brazil is less than five decades old. Along this period, the system has been successful concerning its results, even though some of its essential features remain unfinished. In the field of Psychology, the system comprises 64 Programs and 42 of them offer Doctoral degrees. In order to efficiently cope the demands of the Brazilian Graduate System, the Psychology area will need to face challenges, some of which we highlight in this paper. They are: (a) the enlargement of geographical and thematic scope in order to overcome regional asymmetries and thematic gaps in psychological research; (b) the improvement of the evaluation system in order to comprise the diverse strategies in instructing new researchers and the knowledge production in every subarea of Psychology; (c) the necessity of a link among different areas of Graduate Programs in Psychology since the basis for knowledge production in this field may have additional demands related to the development of intervention technologies; and (d) the elaboration of policies which may qualify the system, improving the research networks, providing international exchange for the groups, promoting scientific publications, and extensive methodological learning, for instance. The diagnosis of these and other challenges, in their multiple dimensions, may lead to a more efficient use of the potentials of Brazilian research groups, towards the development of knowledge production and training new researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to discuss gaps, goals and conditions for the expansion of graduate studies in psychology in Brazil. To this end, based on the assumption that it is necessary to consider the objectives to be achieved, the conditions for predicted or supposed feasibility must be taken into account. It is initially approached the need for expanding graduate studies in psychology. Affirmatively concluding it, different goals and conditions necessary to achieve such expansion are drawn: (a) to proceed in the direction that every State in the country offers graduate programs in the area and that in five years, there are five States with new programs; (b) that the States which already have masters' programs start to have doctorate ones; (c) that the States that only have programs in private higher education institutions may also offer programs in public institutions; (d) that in some States with large territory more micro-regions might be contemplated. To better equip the existing programs with qualified human resources, it is proposed an annual growth of awarded degrees around 10%. Analyzing data from surveys, difficulties of proposing goals based on some gaps in subareas were discussed, one of them is the lack of consensus about what should be a Concentration Area or Line of Research. The goals of Graduate Programs to be met with the types of expansion proposed and the issue of professional master's degrees were discussed and it was proposed the induction of professional master's in existing consolidated programs, up to a limit of 10% of the system (area) in an interval of two years. It is suggested to prioritize the qualification / training of managers and professionals in the field of social policies (health care). Some goals have also been proposed considering the relation between graduate and undergraduate education and the needs indentified in the process of training such professionals. New studies and surveys are needed to update the available data and validate the proposals made in this work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]