On behalf of the Organizing Committee and the School of Civil Engineering, Architecture and Urban Design (FEC), University of Campinas (UNICAMP), I am pleased to announce that GRECE 2014: International Workshop on Research Frontiers and Challenges to Graduate Education in Civil Engineering will be held in Campinas, State of Sao Paulo, Brazil, from August 21st and 22nd, 2014.

Civil Engineering education has faced unprecedented transformations and challenges. Societal demands for infrastructure systems, the housing sector and industry have strengthened and created new requirements related to reliability, costs and more sustainable solutions for services and outputs to civil engineers' work around the World. In this context, the education and academic research system have faced frequent needs to take critical decisions in order to respond new requirements, aiming at fostering innovation as well as providing quality education. Tremendous opportunities arise from society pressures, including those derived from planned strategies considering research and graduate education, addressing both cutting edge and applied research in several areas of Civil Engineering. From the recognition of the powerful potential of international collaboration, this workshop aims to provide an overview and discussions about recent trends and main challenges to graduate education in Civil Engineering. The workshop agenda includes selected advances in classical areas, emerging areas and interdisciplinary research.

We look forward to this great opportunity to interact professors, educators and University leaders aiming at improving our research work, teaching and the overall quality of the Civil Engineering graduate programs.

Paulo Barbosa
General Workshop Chair
Dean, School of Civil Engineering, Architecture and Urban Design, FEC-UNICAMP