The purpose of this research was to study the practical application of the emerging university paradigm in the third millennium, as conceived by Lucchesi (1999), which consists in the understanding that in higher education the production of knowledge is its fundamental activity. This refers to the search for a new episteme in which research should precede and support teaching and the extension of services to the community (the third component of university activities which, in Brazil, is by law a part of the very concept of university). Research at an emerging university tends to be interdisciplinary because the paradigm of production of knowledge has changed from a model rigorously segmented by disciplines to a model based on interdisciplinarity and tending toward transdisciplinarity. This has occurred due to the development of science and technology, which can no longer be contained in the strict boundaries of the disciplines. Foucault (2002), one of the theoreticians on whom this study is based, states that the division of sciences established in the 19th century corresponds to a division of power. Morin (2001) and Nicolescu (1999), the other two authors underlying our research, demonstrate that the complexity of reality necessarily leads to the complexity of science and to a change in the paradigm of perceiving reality, and, consequently, of scientific knowlege.The object of the study are the possibilities of applying the paradigm of emerging university. This experiment was carried out at an institution which is not required (by Brazilian legislation) to engage in research as it is not considered to be a university but an autonomous college, a model similar to American colleges.

The methodology relied on a hypothetico-deductive approach because it started from the theoretical principle accepted by the academia and discussed by Lucchesi in the last few years, namely that in higher education courses the production of scientific knowledge, based on research, precedes and supports excellence in teaching. The procedure adopted was a case study and the research technique was participant observation as one of the authors set up the courses and coordinates them. The case studied involves a set of post-graduate lato sensu courses in Arts (in Brazil, these are considered specialization courses and do not correspond to a Masters degree), which have been introduced in a small private college in the city of São Paulo, since the beginning of 2004. The period studied ended in early 2009 but reflects a process under development as the courses are still being offered and new interdisciplinarities have been coming into being.

Our results have shown that the paradigm of emerging university in the third millennium is appliccable to any higher education institution, regardless of it being a university or an autonomous college (administrative characteristics), of its size and number of students and of the area(s) of knowledge addressed in its courses. It was observed that a focus on research is a motivating factor for students as many students already come to the initial selection interview (a requirement in the selection process) with a research proposal or at least a topic of interest. Interdisciplinarity, which in the first two years when the courses started was something unique to students, has become the reason for chosing that institution. Even without public or private funding for research, it has been financially possible to carry out this initial phase of introducing the paradigm.