The Graduate Program in Mechanical Engineering (PPGEM) at UFCG, at the Master's level, was approved by CAPES in 2009 and began its activities in March 2010. The PPGEM is characterized by being the only graduate program stricto sensu in Mechanical Engineering in the North, Northeast and Midwest regions, working in an inland city, outside the state capitals. This finding, by itself, reveals its strategic character in this current moment of expansion of Engineering to the cities in the interior of these regions, aiming to reduce regional asymmetries and inequalities. For the exercise of research and development activities in Mechanical Sciences, the PPGEM has a single concentration area called Thermomechanical Systems, and provides the possibility of emphasis on 3 lines of interdisciplinary research: Analysis and Design of Thermomechanical Systems; Transport and Energy Phenomena; and Mechanical-Metallurgical Processes.