Innovations at the Brazilian Federal Network of Vocational Education

From a centenary trajectory, currently, 38 Federal Institutes, two Federal Technological Education Centers (Cefets), and Pedro II College are part of the Federal Network for Professional, Scientific, and Technological Education. There are 643 campuses, more than one million enrollments, and about 80 thousand civil servants (teachers and administrative technicians). The institutions have a social commitment to offering free and excellent public, professional education to young people and workers from the countryside and the city; they enable adequate access to scientific and technological achievements by offering a professional qualification in several areas of knowledge; promote applied research and innovation and act strongly in technical extension. Modern, connected, and interactive, the Network invests in the internationalization of professional education. Partnerships signed with educational institutions from more than 30 countries opened opportunities for mobility and scientific and academic exchange, providing new experiences for students and civil servants, in addition to actively participating in technical cooperation projects that promote institutional strengthening and the sharing of good practices. The federal network has presented great potential for innovation in recent years, and several works have gained international importance. This book presents a series of successful practices in terms of innovation developed and applied directly to improving productive Brazilian arrangements. The main objective is to present successful experiences carried out by the Brazilian federal network of professional and technological education, which has been a reference in the area of innovation in teaching, research, and extension for the past ten years. This book's value consists of experiences that can be replicated by any educational system or group in the world interested in improving the products or processes in their community. The impact consists of short- and medium-term innovation implementation models (unlike universities, where research is generally carried out over the long term and takes a certain amount of time to reach society).