The Postgraduate Education Program in Biological Sciences (Botany) from the Institute of Biosciences, São Paulo State University (UNESP), Botucatu Campus (PPGCBB/IBB) includes master’s and doctorate degrees in two concentration areas: A) Plant Physiology and Biochemistry, and B) Plant Morphology and Diversity.
This Program aims to capacitate professionals in those concentration areas with a solid formation in research, enabling thus excellence in Research and Teaching activities.

In this sense, the purposes of our Program have been assured by the following actions:

1. A set of disciplines and short-term courses are offered with the aim of teaching basic, current and relevant botanical themes including professors associated with the Program, collaborators or invited specialists. In addition, students can attend disciplines offered by other postgraduate programs of UNESP and other institutions, which allows flexibility and individuality to the profile of the postgraduate student.
2. Students are involved in the production-business sector, evidenced by their interaction with agricultural labs and companies from the region, as well as with governmental or non-governmental entities related to sustainable exploration and conservation of renewable resources, to which the Program has provided innovation, scientific-technological development and training through direct actions of advisers and their respective students.
3. Students are trained to act in High School and College by means of teacher-training and monitoring, in which they give theoretical and practical classes of several disciplines offered by the Department of Botany to graduation courses in Agronomy; Biological Sciences – bachelor’s and licentiate’s degree, full-time course; Biological Sciences – licentiate’s degree, nocturnal course; Forest Engineering; and Animal Science.
4. Students are stimulated to organize research activities (symposia, workshops, meetings, scientific presentations) and co-advise scientific initiation students in order to train and prepare for research activity.
5. Students are stimulated to participate in extension projects, specially involving High School students, as a commitment of the Program with scientific literacy, improvement of the population life quality, besides knowledge and valuing of the regional biodiversity, aimed at the sustainable use of natural resources.

Since its implantation, the Program has been characterized by a group of professors more directly involved with plant study, which can be evidenced by analyzing the professors’ profile and their scientific production in Plant Physiology and Biochemistry. The interface between this Program and Agronomical Sciences is a noticeable and distinctive aspect relative to the remaining programs in Botany. As regards Plant Morphology and Diversity, studies have focused on botanical phenomena related to the knowledge of the regional flora and São Paulo State biodiversity, especially remnants of forests and cerrados from the central-western region of the state. Thus, the Program has played a relevant role in the internalization and development of the region, mainly gathering researchers and students from several UNESP units and other institutions of Learning and Research from the interior of São Paulo State and other Brazilian regions.
Research lines and projects developed in each concentration area of PPGCBB/IBB are presented below. The concentration area Plant Physiology and Biochemistry includes three research lines: 1) Plant Development Physiology, II) Plant Metabolism Physiology and III) Plant Ecophysiology. The experimental studies performed in the area Plant Physiology and Biochemistry are carried out in labs, greenhouses and in the field, and their main target are cultivated plants from tropical climate and native plants presenting economic potential. Thus, although plant physiology emphasizes the basic principles regarding plant development and metabolism, researchers from this area consider that the fundamental utility of these themes is their application to solve agronomical problems, which will improve the productivity of Brazilian species.
The concentration area Plant Morphology and Diversity comprises three research lines: I) Plant Morphology and Anatomy, II) Anatomy and identification of woods  and II) Taxonomy, Floristics and Ecology. The developing projects in Plant Anatomy have provided knowledge on anatomical patterns and peculiarities of native species, mainly remnants from São Paulo State cerrado. There is also a strict collaboration between some Plant Anatomy researchers and specialists from related areas, mainly Agronomical and Animal Sciences, emphasizing the experimental study of cultivated plants and those of zootechnical interest. As regards Taxonomy, Floristics and Ecology, studies are inserted into five projects: 1) Biology of Plant Reproduction, 2) Insect-Plant Interaction, 3) Floristic and Phytosociological Survey, 4) Systematic of Angiosperms, and 5) Systematic and Diversity of Lichenized Fungi. There is a growth tendency in such concentration area, besides a strong interaction among the projects developed in both research lines, which have been frequently complementary. In general, studies of the area Plant Morphology and Diversity have improved the scientific knowledge on São Paulo State biodiversity, mainly in the central-western region of the state, and the training of enabled people to act with questions related to biodiversity conservation, protection and management.