Historically, since its inception, the Postgraduate Program in Agricultural Engineering (PGEA) has sought its internationalization through various exchanges, agreements and projects. Naturally, the search for developing projects with international partnerships is a reflection of the academic training of the teachers who formed the initial staff, since four of them completed their doctorates in foreign institutions and continue to maintain professional contact with researchers from these institutions. The agreements signed in the early years of the program are worth highlighting: with the University of Georgia (Elvira Pedrosa) and with the University of Saskatchewan (Mateus Rosas Ribeiro, in memoriam) and with the University of Barcelona (Lilia Willadino), in addition to the Higher Education Exchange Agreement between UFRPE - Department of Agricultural Engineering (Water Resources Area), the University of Birmingham (School of Earth Sciences), sponsored by the British Council, and later by DFID (England), under the title "Improving water availability for sustainable food production and rural development in small-scale irrigated areas".
International exchange activities can be seen in all the annual reports submitted to CAPES. More intensively, based on strategic planning, in 2014, the PGEA undertook actions aimed at accelerating international insertion, seeking to develop work that would allow the dissemination of ideologies and concepts to the international scientific community. The fruits of this effort came with the evaluation of the four-year period (2013-2016), in which the PGEA achieved Concept 6, and internationalization actions began to permeate all of the Program's activities, seeking to consolidate it on the international scene.
For the period between 2013 and 2020, international cooperation was maintained with institutions and researchers from several countries, with emphasis on institutions from Portugal, Spain, the United States, France, Germany, England and Mozambique. New actions were initiated in the current four-year period (2017-2020) with the expansion of international relations with other countries, with emphasis on Switzerland and Sweden.
An International Cooperation Agreement is currently in force with the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology of Wallingford (CEH), including the possibility of receiving students from the Program. Based on post-doctoral internships carried out at CEH by professors Abelardo Montenegro and Suzana Montenegro, important scientific articles were published in partnership with Dr. Ragab Ragab.
Among the international partnerships established and active between 2013 and 2024, we can mention groups from the following institutions:
- University of California, Davis - UC Davis – USA, through a scientific relationship between Prof. Howard Ferris and Prof. Elvira Maria Regis Pedrosa;
- University of Évora, Portugal, with scientific cooperation between Prof. Fátima de Jesus Folgôa Baptista and Prof. Heliton Pandorfi;
- University of Coimbra, Portugal, through a scientific partnership between Prof. João Luis Mendes Pedroso de Lima and Prof. Abelardo Montenegro;
- Texas A&M University, USA, with the collaboration maintained between Prof. Ragavan Srinivasan and Prof. Suzana Montenegro and with Prof. Abelardo Montenegro;
- University of Florida, Gainesville – USA, with a partnership between Prof. Donald W. Dickson and Prof. Elvira Maria Regis Pedrosa;
- University of A Coruña, Spain, with joint scientific work between Prof. Antônio Paz Gonzalez and Prof. Ênio Farias de França e Silva;
- Institute of Agricultural Research of Mozambique (IIAM) and Eduardo Modlane University, Mozambique, through agreements between Dr. Carlos Ecole (in memoriam) and Prof. Ênio Farias de França e Silva;
- Technical University of Dresden (TU-DRESDEN), Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Department of Hydrosciences; through Dr. Catalin Stefan and Prof. Suzana Montenegro.
- Polytechnic University of Cartagena (UPCT-ES), Department of Agricultural Engineering, through Prof. Alejandro Perez-Pastor and Prof. Ênio Farias de França e Silva and with Prof. Alexsandro Oliveira da Silva.
The aforementioned partnerships have allowed and are allowing the development of several mobility actions and active internationalization, including collaboration in scientific productions between researchers and participation in international network projects.