The emerging e-science, with its intensive use of data and computing, is an opportunity for the Lattes Curriculum System, which exceeds six million curricula at 20 years of existence. Seizing the opportunity requires knowledge and mobilization of the actors and human and technological factors involved, as well as their bonds. In that sense, the objective of this article is to describe the Lattes Curriculum System according to the composition-environment-structure-mechanism system metamodel (or CESM, by Mario Bunge) that accounts for those actors, factors, and bonds. The procedures include the first two of the general methodological rules of Bunge's systemic research: placing social facts in their broader context (or system) and dividing the system into its composition, environment, and structure. Information sources for model abstraction include texts from the scientific literature on the Lattes Platform and Curriculum System, as well as articles that cite Lattes curricula as information sources, and official web pages on the Lattes Platform. The resulting model is presented in graphic and in textual form. We discuss the potential use of the model in informing the modernization plan of the Lattes Platform. We conclude by drawing on those potentialities and outlining aspects of the social control mechanism, which, as the study of other mechanisms of this system, is an indication for future work
