FAPESP Week stimulates collaborative research in South America

Scientists from several countries attended symposium in Montevideo to present research results and discuss opportunities for collaboration.

By Heitor Shimizu, in Montevideo  |  Agência FAPESP – Scientists from Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay met in Montevideo last week to present the results of frontier research projects and discuss opportunities for collaboration.

The symposium took place on November 17-18 and was organized by FAPESP in collaboration with the Montevideo Group Association of Universities (AUGM) and Uruguay’s University of the Republic (UDELAR).

The event was opened by Alvaro Maglia Cenzani, who welcomed the participants and spoke about AUGM. Celani is a professor at UDELAR and Executive Secretary of AUGM.

Established in 1991, AUGM is a network of public universities in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay with more than 1.5 m undergraduates, 250,000 graduate students, and 135,000 researchers and teachers.

“AUGM’s main aim is to create a common academic space in the region through cooperation as a contribution to integration of the member countries through development,” Cenzani said.

AUGM runs several programs to foster scientific cooperation among member countries. One of these is Núcleos Disciplinários, technical and scientific groups in areas of shared interest for highly qualified academics and scientists.

Another is ESCALA, an acronym for Espacio Académico Común Ampliado Latinoamericano. This program fosters mobility for academics and administrators, as well as credit-earning international student exchange. In 2015 AUGM and FAPESP signed a cooperation agreement to support collaborative research projects.

The next speaker was FAPESP Scientific Director Carlos Henrique de Brito Cruz, who thanked the hosts, organizers and researchers present, and spoke about the FAPESP Week series of events organized around the world.

“FAPESP Weeks are important opportunities to create conditions and incentives for scientific collaboration between researchers in São Paulo State and other countries,” he said.

Representing FAPESP President José Goldemberg, CEO Carlos Américo Pacheco stressed the importance of “promoting not just mobility, which is quite good among our countries, but also cross-border cooperation and collaboration via joint research projects”.

Pacheco went on to say that “for some years now, FAPESP has also fostered international cooperation to underscore the importance of the science produced in São Paulo State and Brazil, and to drive its development. Indeed, the more international cooperation we have, the greater the quality and impact of the science we produce”.

Maria Simon, a professor at UDELAR’s School of Engineering, emphasized her institution’s need for international cooperation. “We’re a small community, so our interest in cross-border collaboration is huge. And we always pursue collaboration in high-quality, high-value research,” she said.

For Roberto Markarian Abrahamian, Rector of UDELAR, his institution “is a major university in a small country”. UDELAR is Uruguay’s only public higher education institution. It was founded in 1849 and currently has over 100,000 students.

“Some 80% of Uruguay’s university students are enrolled at the University of the Republic, which is a state-owned institution,” he said.

São Paulo and South America

Brito Cruz delivered the opening lecture at FAPESP Week Montevideo. Underlining the importance of international collaboration in research to advance knowledge in the participating countries, he cited the example of astronomy, in which funding from FAPESP enables Brazilian researchers to take part in such large-scale projects as SOAR in Chile and LLAMA and Pierre Auger in Argentina.

“Alongside Uruguay we’re participating in the BINGO telescope project to study dark energy in the Universe and other astrophysical phenomena,” he said.

The telescope will be built in northern Uruguay. Researchers from the University of São Paulo (USP) and Brazil’s National Space Research Institute (INPE) will lead the structural design process and the fabrication of a prototype 0.96-1.26 GHz signal receiver module. Besides Brazil and Uruguay, institutions in the United Kingdom and Switzerland are also taking part.

Brito Cruz went on to describe the kinds of support offered by FAPESP to foster collaboration, such as funding for scientists from other countries to come to Brazil to work on collaborative research projects.

The programs that do this include Young Investigators in Emerging Centers, Grants for Visiting Researchers, the São Paulo Excellence Chair, and the São Paulo Schools of Advanced Science.

Brito Cruz also presented a short overview of science in São Paulo State, which accounts for about 45% of the science produced in Brazil. “Universities in São Paulo State award about 40% of Brazil’s new crop of PhDs each year,” he said.

He also pointed out that São Paulo invests 1.8% of its GDP in research and development (R&D). The percentage has risen. In 2008, for example, it was 1.52%.

Moving on to the sources of research funding in São Paulo, Brito Cruz noted that whereas in other states public investment in research is mostly federal, the situation is different in São Paulo.

In 2012, for example, the federal government contributed 14% of total investment in R&D in São Paulo, while the state government contributed 24%, and private enterprise 59%. The rest came from higher education institutions.

“São Paulo is by far the state that invests most in science and technology in Brazil. Ten times more than Rio de Janeiro, which ranks second. This commitment has many important consequences. For example, some 40% of Brazilians with PhDs earned their undergraduate degree in São Paulo State. They amounted to 6,777 in 2015,” Brito Cruz said.

“Investment in R&D in São Paulo State surpasses that of any South American country. One of the results can be seen in the number of scientific articles: São Paulo also publishes more than any country in South America.”

Brito Cruz said annual investment in R&D in the state amounts to some 8 billion Brazilian Reals. FAPESP is responsible for a significant proportion of this effort. In 2015 it invested 1.18 billion Brazilian reals in support for research projects.

To read more about FAPESP Week Montevideo, visit: www.fapesp.br/week2016/montevideo.