Marcel Bursztyn is a Giorgio Ruffolo Research Fellow in Sustainability Science in the Sustainability Science Program at Harvard's Center for International Development and Harvard's David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies and a Fulbright Visiting Senior Scholar. He is founder and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at the University of Brasilia, the major graduate center on sustainable development in Brazil that has granted over 70 doctorates and 250 masters over the past 11 years. He has 30 years experience including extensive work in the design and evaluation of environmental projects in the Brazilian Amazon and North-east regions. His work includes evaluation of public policies, environmental management, science and technology policy, the state and planning, agriculture and development, economics and regional development, urban and regional planning. He received his doctorates in social and economic development from the Université de Paris I (Sorbonne) and in economics from the Université de Picardie.

Institutionalization of interdisciplinarity in the Brazilian university: the case of environmental sciences. Production of academic knowledge in the past two centuries has been marked by a clear trend towards specialization. The considerable importance currently gained by environmental issues, as seen through the lense of sustainable development, has promoted significant changes in this scenario and highlighted the need for interdisciplinary approaches (de-specialization). The recent creation of interdisciplinary master's and doctoral training programs in Brazil faces a range of obstacles related to the general crisis prevailing in University. Using examples taken from Brazilian graduate programs, our paper outlines and analyzes critically the programs focused on environmental issues nationwide and shows the significant limitations and challenges incurred in building this new field of knowledge. Despite a growing trend towards "environmentalization" of some disciplines, the issue at stake is to interdisciplinarize the focus on sustainable development. The consolidated programs are presented according to the specific institutional arrangements adopted by them. They clearly reflect a need to act creatively in order to break through the impenetrable structure of disciplinary departments. To conlcude, the idea of building a network structure within University is argued as a possible alternative, a solution that does not deny the role of traditional departments, but opens spaces for their interaction with interdisciplinary units and programs.

Natures Sciences Sociétés 15, 57-64 (2007)
DOI: 10.1051/nss:2007025