Orçamento participativo em universidades públicas: diretrizes a partir de experiências reais

Abstract

The current scenario of fiscal restriction in Federal Institutions of Higher Education (IFES) imposes the challenge of reconciling resources scarcity with the demand for a more democratic and efficient management. The purpose of this dissertation is to develop guidelines for the adoption of Participatory Budgeting (PB) in Brazilian Public Universities, using the Federal University of Pará (UFPA) as a diagnostic case study. The research adopted a qualitative approach, operationalized through documentary research, structured in two axes: the comparative analysis of current national experiences (UFF, UFCA, and UNILA) and the diagnostic immersion in the local reality. Data collection involved the use of the Access to Information Law (LAI), a necessary strategy to overcome the identified technical opacity, especially regarding the calculation memory of the Internal Budget Distribution Matrix (MIDO) of UFPA. The results evidence a significant contrast: while the reference cases demonstrate that the PB acts as a mechanism of civic education and budgetary literacy, the local diagnosis revealed weaknesses in transparency and the absence of participatory criteria for sharing. It is concluded that the viability of PB in public universities depends less on the volume of resources and more on the political decision to share power. As a product, the work presents technical and regulatory guidelines designed to overcome the culture of centralization, offering management instruments adaptable to the budgetary complexity of federal universities.