The central scope of the research lines of this program is based on sustainability, whose essence is the adequacy of management that promotes human and environmental interaction, with an emphasis on factors that involve risks to environmental systems, especially those that support life. Works such as highways, waterways, hydroelectric plants, ports, industries and mining companies; activities such as extensive livestock farming and monoculture farming (eg planting soybeans) and deforestation for planting grasses have configured and attributed new functions and forms of organization in the UFOPA's regions. These changes have demanded the presence of a qualified, consolidated and active intellectual contingent to monitor the current agenda of structuring projects planned for the Amazon. The cultural elements of the different ethnic-social groups, such as the indigenous, quilombolas and riverside communities; and concerns about environmental health, primary health care and the promotion of the quality of life and social well-being of local groups are examples of aspects that are commonly overlooked or considered unimportant in view of other indicators, especially those of economic impact.

The analysis of complex systems goes beyond disciplinary competences that can only explain one or the other of its determinants, and leads to the construction of complex or hybrid objects of study, located at the interfaces of social and natural systems. The construction of such objects implies the identification and resolution of problems through the articulation of different disciplinary areas. Thus, the interdisciplinarity understood here implies a relativization of the field of disciplinary knowledge. Nowadays, it is known that the collection and the scientific-technological format assembled only on disciplinary bases lose their strength when it comes to solving complex and current problems. Situations such as pollution, degradation of the environment and human health, regional development without a sustainable basis are some of the problems that demand an interdisciplinary investigative intervention. In this context, the PPGSAQ aims to contribute to the promotion and constant revitalization of the debate on sustainable development and its agenda for the 21st century, in the Amazon, in particular in the western region of Pará.

Based on the regional asymmetries identified, mainly in locations outside the large centers where the opportunities for academic qualification are better, the PPGSAQ becomes viable and relevant to UFOPA's development plan, generating effective and consistent impacts in the training of professionals capable of articulate ideas, concepts and facts; and guide sustainable development in the Amazon. In addition, PPGSAQ is in line with UFOPA's institutional project, fulfilling the mission of socializing and producing knowledge, contributing to citizenship, innovation and development in the Amazon; and aiming to be a reference in interdisciplinary training to integrate society, nature and development.

The issue of interdisciplinarity, in particular, is closely linked to the problem of educational intervention that invites us to question professional practice within a multi-referential perspective. Professional training in the perspective of the PPGSAQ, based on interdisciplinarity, is based on the indispensable synergy between theory and practice (praxis) as a vector of innovation, given that the challenges presented to the world today, to be faced, require looks capable of overcoming the fragmented scientific status of modernity, causing new epistemological approaches refractory to the rigidity of truths presented as absolute. Therefore, the interdisciplinary professor / researcher's way of acting is in coherence with his way of being, which exercises humility in being permanently learning while teaching, daring an attitude of learner and teacher. In this way, more than the transmission of knowledge, this Graduate Program opens up a field of overcoming the disciplinary paradigm for the creation of prospective projects / actions of socio-environmental and cultural interest, with investigations of development policies sustainable regional development. Therefore, we consider the Master's course in Society, Environment and Quality of Life, managed and institutionalized by CFI, in order to provide an understanding of the dynamics of society-nature interrelations and quality of life of extreme academic and social relevance.