Fernando Henrique Cardoso kicks off Fronteras de la Ciencia

Sociologist and former Brazilian President kicks off the seminar in Spain and highlights the "the university’s sense of cooperation." FAPESP and Salamanca University announce a call for proposals.

By Carlos Eduardo Lins da Silva, from Salamanca

The kickoff event “Frontiers of Science – Brazil and Spain in the 50 years of FAPESP” this Monday (12/10) included announcement of the first call for proposals to be carried out within the scope of the scientific cooperation agreement between FAPESP and the University of Salamanca (Usal).

The areas whose projects will initially be considered for the 10,000 Euro funding offered by each entity are: Physics (semi-conductors, pulse laser, spectrometry), Mathematics, Climatology, Chemical Engineering, Life Sciences (parasitology, biochemistry, cellular and molecular biology, neuroscience, cardiology and cancer), Agriculture (microbiology and genetics, molecular biology), Nursing, Pharmacology, Law, History, Pedagogy, Library Sciences and Communications. The call for proposals is set to be published on December 17, 2012.

The series of conferences in the “Frontiers of Science” seminar was initiated by sociologist and former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who spoke about the political science landscape in Brazil and its prospects for the future. The “Frontiers of Science” event includes the celebration of 50 years of FAPESP in the cities of Salamanca (12/10-12/12) and Madrid, 12/13-12/14), and brings together researchers from the state of São Paulo and from several academic and research institutions of Spain in a lively and varied program that is open to the public.

Cardoso, recipient of this year’s Kluge Prize, which is comparable to the Nobel Prize in the social sciences, and doctor honoris causa from the University of Salamanca in 2002, is full professor of political science at the University of São Paulo although he trained as a sociologist.

He said that “what unites people at universities is a sense of cooperation, a sense of belonging to a community; universities are dedicated to knowledge, but also to the sense of sharing,” which is the reason why events like those promoted by FAPESP and the University of Salamanca are so relevant, because they promote this cooperation at the international level.

The sociologist described political science as it first appeared in Brazil as “obsessed” with uncovering the country’s “foundations of development,” which were a patrimonial colonial state and an export and slave-holding economy. His 1961 doctoral dissertation at USP was about capitalism and slavery in southern Brazil.

“Those were quasi-political studies about the development of Brazil and about how power was distributed,” said Cardoso, who cited Raymundo Faoro, Gilberto Freyre and Oliveira Vianna among the great forerunners and pioneers of these studies.

After this initial phase, the increased complexity of Brazilian society derived from the process of industrialization and urbanization added new issues and problems to the concerns of the scholars. “It was no longer possible to explain the [the Brazilian social phenomenon] using simple models,” he said.

It path was bumpy, due in part to the political occurrences that truncated the first democratic experiment begun in 1946, but it did progress, even during the time of the military regime that began in 1964.

“Many people refer to the 1980s as the lost decade. I don’t agree. It may have been lost in economic terms, but it was a time when civil society was strengthened through the actions of the Church, the media and unions,” asserted the former President.

The changes that had been coming about for some time were made official by the Constitutions of 1986 and 1988. “Brazil changed tremendously. It was not so much that patrimonialism ended, but rather, that other forces emerged, there is struggle now” he emphasized.

The priority topics for political science today include “the study of institutions, the analysis and evaluation of public policies, and the understanding of political parties, elections and social movements,” he went on to say.

In order to illustrate the enormous differences in how science is conducted in Brazil, Cardoso described how research data analysis for his doctoral dissertation was handled by administration at the School of Medicine, which had the only IBM computer available. The responses collected in the field had to be copied to cards that were manually punched and then processed by the computer.

For the future, the former president stated that the main subject will be new forms of political expression and public debate represented by networks and social media. He quoted Spanish sociologist Manuel Castells, who in his opinion is someone who has best analyzed this phenomenon. “Virtual communities are being created and we have to understand how they work and how they affect political life,” he said.

Nearly 200 people attended the former president’s speech. The initial session roundtable was chaired by the Dean of the University of Salamanca, Daniel Henández Ruipérez, and included the Brazilian Ambassador to Madrid, Paulo Cesar de Oliveira Campos, FAPESP President, Professor Celso Lafer, the former Usal dean and, beginning in January, new president of the university’s Brazilian Studies Center, Ignácio Berdugo Gómez de la Torre, and José Manuel Moreno Aeria, from Banco Santander, which sponsors Brazilian Studies Center activities.

Lafer announced that a second edition of “Frontiers of Science” will be held in São Paulo in 2014, and that in 2013, the science communities of São Paulo and Spain will be consulted as to the theme of the seminar.

Before the inaugural session, FAPESP Scientific Director Carlos Henrique de Brito Cruz, and Assistant Dean of Usal, María de los Ángeles Serrano described the current status of science and technology in São Paulo and Spain, respectively.

Monday morning also saw inauguration of the exhibition “Brazilian Nature” that features reproductions of 19th century prints made by German explorer Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius as well as photographs taken under the auspices of the Biota-FAPESP program on biodiversity in the state of São Paulo.

At that time, Lafer, Brito Cruz and FAPESP CEO, Professor José Arana Varela, presented reproductions of the von Martius prints to Usal and Salamanca authorities, as well as to the Brazilian Ambassador to Madrid.

After the inaugural session, nearly 20 journalists took part in a press conference with the dean of Usal and then with directors from FAPESP and Usal, along with former President Cardoso.

The dean read a manifesto by the deans of all the Spanish universities entitled: “The university, guarantee of the future,” against education budget cuts in Spain.

Cardoso stated that “the society of the future will increasingly be known, as it already is, as the society of knowledge, and compromising the education budget means compromising the future. A policy based only on austerity is one that offers no real hope and makes it very difficult to get a glimpse of a better future.

Lafer, Brito Cruz and Serrano talked about the joint FAPESP and Usal call for research proposals by as well as prospects for the 2014 “Frontiers of Science” seminar to be held in São Paulo.

On Sunday night, the Brazilian Studies Center of Usal, through its president, Gonzalo Dacal, offered seminar participants and the deans of the Tordesillas Group, also gathering in Salamanca this week, a reception that featured a piano four hands repertoire of Brazilian music.

Additional information: www.fapesp.br/fronteras