Brazil and Canada debate partnerships in research

Representatives of the scientific community and academics from Brazil and Canada participated in the workshop “Promoting excellence in strategic collaboration with Brazil,” held in Ottawa, Ontario on June 14.

By Fábio de Castro

Agência FAPESP – Representatives of the scientific community and academics from Brazil and Canada participated in the workshop “Promoting excellence in strategic collaboration with Brazil,” held in Ottawa, Ontario on June 14.

The event opened with a panel on the “Existing mechanisms between Canada and Brazil: what to build?” The objective of the panel was to discuss how Canadian and Brazilian universities can take advantage of the existing agreements and mechanisms to stimulate closer relations in higher education and research between the two countries.

Panel members included: FAPESP president, Ricardo Renzo Brentani; Assistant Deputy Minister Agri-Enviroment Services; Jamshed Merchant, Dean of Postgraduate Studies at Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp); Marilza Vieira Cunha Rudge, International Relations Director of the Brazilian Federal Agency for Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education (Capes), Denise Neddermeyer; and Deputy Director, Policy and Planning, International Education and Youth Division, Marie-Claude Bibeau.

One of the topics discussed during the panel was a scientific and academic cooperation agreement signed on March 30 between FAPESP and the universities of Toronto and Western Ontario – both located in the province of Ontario.

The agreement has the objective of promoting and supporting research projects involving collaboration between researchers from São Paulo and Ontario higher education institutions and research institutes. The total amount invested in the effort is $ 200,000 (CAD) or roughly R$ 330,000. FAPESP will be responsible for contributing $100,000 (CAD) and the other half will be provided by the two universities.

“The agreement represents another effort toward FAPESP’s internationalization. The universities of Toronto and Western Ontario are part of a broader process that represents possible research interaction between São Paulo state researchers and these two universities,” Brentani explains to Agência FAPESP.

According to Brentani, the panel also had the objective of discussing which mechanisms are lacking for broader collaboration between Brazil and Canada and which initiatives could help fill these gaps; such as developing new mechanisms and how to increase the scale of existing tools; and what are the existing barriers to increasing scale.

According to event organizers, Canada and Brazil share an important history of collaboration in the education area, with 94 institutional exchange agreements established among universities. There are currently 500 Brazilian students registered at Canadian universities. Yet, although there is support for bilateral relations through government resources from the two countries and growing private sector participation, there is still room for deeper collaboration.

In addition to the panel which highlighted financing opportunities for research in partnership with Brazil and the mechanisms of the agreement among the research institutions from the two companies, the panel “Collaborating for success” discussed how the connections between Brazilian and Canadian universities and the private sector can take advantage of the possibilities for research and exchange among students.

The “Lessons learned” panel debated the lessons that Canadian universities can take from Brazil’s agreements with other countries. The panel “Collaboration for research and innovation” discussed the studies conducted on successful collaborations regarding research and innovation between Brazil and Canada.

A seminar presented by Kris Olds from the University of Wisconsin Madison and Leandro Tessler, director of international relations  at  Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Unicamp), dealt with the “Global trends in higher education research: understanding the current context.”

In the round table “Strategists in communication,” specialists in the field discussed how Brazil is treated in Canadian media and in what way the strategic importance of Brazil and can be conveyed more effectively.