The State University of Rio de Janeiro (Uerj) will establish the Social Observatory of Quotas to enable the monitoring and systematization of data on access, permanence and academic trajectory of quota students at the university. The selection of the team that will integrate the Observatory will be made through a notice. According to the dean of Student Policies and Assistance at Uerj, Daniel Pinha, the idea is to later launch a new call for all researchers at the university who want to participate and contribute to the initiative. Related news: STF has majority to overturn SC law that prohibited racial quotas. Census: 50% of quota students at federal universities complete their degree. "If there is a researcher from a laboratory or department at Uerj who wants to contribute to what they already do, that would be great. The objective of the observatory is to bring together and articulate research themes", he explains. Pinha stated that there is great concern about the access and permanence of Uerj students.  "In the new call, we want to articulate research that already exists. So, there will be two calls: one aims to coordinate our research and the other aims to bring together research that already exists." The second call should take place by the end of this month. The Social Observatory of Uerj Quotas should be established by a service order that will be published this Thursday (11) and should start operating in the first days of July. Creation The idea of creating the Observatory of Quotas was defined between the Dean of Student Policies and Assistance and the Commission for the Defense of Human Rights of the Legislative Assembly of Rio de Janeiro (Alerj), chaired by deputy Dani Monteiro (PSOL), a former Uerj student. "We build public policies at Uerj and monitor those that already exist. This converges with the Human Rights Commission as well", highlighted Daniel Pinha. For deputy Dani Monteiro, the quotas represent reparations for a significant portion of the population. According to her, the Observatory of Quotas seeks to advance the formulation and evaluation of what has been the quota policy in universities. The deputy highlights that the new structure was born with a “huge responsibility”, not only to think about the bottlenecks that the quota student still faces in getting into a vacancy, but also their permanence. This involves knowing whether the university has the material conditions to provide student assistance that supports these students who normally represent the most underserved portion of the university. Advance The president of the Alerj Human Rights Defense Commission considers that there has been progress in relation to affirmative actions in higher education. He said that before the quotas, the racialized portion of the university, both among the teaching staff and the student body, represented a very low percentage. "It was below 10% among students and there were large historical universities in the country, such as the University of São Paulo (USP), with a staff of around five thousand teachers and not even a tenth of that percentage of racialized teachers. It was an extremely serious situation that shows that a Brazil with a black and indigenous majority did not occupy space in the public university", he questioned. In Dani Monteiro's assessment, affirmative actions, such as social and racial quotas, popularized what should be a right of the people. She highlighted that the university in Brazil, historically, was for the elites and, with the implementation of affirmative actions, the view on who these vacancies belong to changed.  “So, not only racialized students benefit, but poor white students also benefit.” She believes that this represents an advance in the affirmative action policy with regard to the rights of the Brazilian people. Success The president of the Alerj Human Rights Defense Commission and co-author of the creation of the Social Observatory of Uerj Quotas stated that the success of the quota policy was undeniable, translated by the contribution of indigenous peoples, bringing ancestral knowledge to scientific production, and of black people, in urban areas, directly contributing to the pulse of universities in large capitals. Beneficiary of Uerj's quota policy, Dani Monteiro knows, in practice, the transformative potential of this achievement. “We need to reach 2028, when the current state legislation will need to be renewed, with evidence, social mobilization and institutional commitment to expand this right", he stated.