FAPESP’s new SCD will act as a research hub focused on decarbonizing São Paulo’s roads

The Sustainability and Innovation in Road Infrastructure Science Center for Development will receive BRL 7.7 million in funding from the Foundation and 42 scholarship recipients to apply new materials and solutions in pavement recycling.

Agência FAPESP* – On December 2, 2025, the São Paulo Highway Department (DER-SP), an agency linked to the State Department for the Environment, Infrastructure, and Logistics (SEMIL), and the Engineering School of the University of São Paulo (POLI-USP) inaugurated the Sustainability and Innovation in Road Infrastructure Science Center for Development (SCD). 

Funded by FAPESP, the new SCD will receive a total investment of BRL 7.7 million to research new materials and solutions aimed at decarbonization through the recycling of pavement from the 12,000-kilometer road network directly managed by DER-SP.

Proposed by DER-SP president Sergio Codelo, the new center will mobilize 26 researchers, including undergraduate and graduate engineering students. The goal is to expand the use of sustainable materials in paving over the five-year research period. There will be a total of 42 scholarship recipients: eight doctoral students, ten master’s students, 19 recipients of scientific initiation scholarships, and five recipients of technical training scholarships.

“Today is a historic day for DER-SP. This new research center is very significant for what we want to build. Under this administration, the department has prioritized transparency and encouraged research through partnerships with universities to implement increasingly promising techniques, such as pavement recycling,” Codelo said.

Under the coordination of Professor Kamilla Vasconcelos Savasini from POLI-USP, the Sustainability and Innovation in Road Infrastructure SCD also includes representatives from the São Carlos (EESC) and Lorena (EEL) engineering schools at USP, as well as the Faculty of Technology at the State University of Campinas (FT-UNICAMP). The SCD also collaborates directly with infrastructure-related agencies such as the National Department of Transportation Infrastructure (DNIT), the São Paulo State Regulatory Agency for Delegated Public Transportation Services (ARTESP), and the National Land Transportation Agency (ANTT), in addition to private sector companies.

“This SCD will work by combining academic excellence with the practical demands of the public and private sectors. Our goal is to accelerate the creation of solutions that make highway paving more closely associated with the sector’s decarbonization demands, and we believe that recycling is an important pillar,” Savasini summarized.

FAPESP’s SCDs bring together researchers from universities and research institutes, as well as managers from state or municipal agencies, companies, and non-governmental organizations, to work on projects that solve social or economic problems of interest to the state of São Paulo. “It’s a direct application of science and, as a result, the projects developed bring immediate benefits to the population,” says Marco Antonio Zago, president of the Foundation.

The Sustainability and Innovation in Road Infrastructure Center is one of 34 new SCDs announced by FAPESP in September 2025, totaling an investment of BRL 256 million in collaborative research.

* With information from the DER-SP Press Office