Brazilian Society still does not possess a culture that is favorable for the development of self-evaluation. To overcome the idea of somative evaluation and the creation of rankings based on indicators that are essentially quantitative, it is necessary to experiment with processes that are autonomous, formative, and participatory, involving the academic community on all educational levels. Thus, in light of the challenge of improving the Capes evaluation system, especially in relation to the limitations regarding the use of qualitative methods in the context of large-scale, external assessments conducted nationally, the value now given to the proposals and practices of the self-evaluation of graduate programs as a component of Capes’ evaluation model represents an important opportunity to promote cultural change. The development of the self-evaluation of graduate programs will induce greater maturity on the part of researchers and students with respect to co-responsibility, collaboration, and engagement in efforts to improve graduate study, thereby contributing not only to the quality of researcher preparation, but also to the practice of democracy within graduate-level programs.