Plans for cooperation

In a workshop on tropical medicine organized by FAPESP, Brazilian and British scientists identify common interests and discuss ways to achieve financing for more collaborative studies

By Fábio de Castro

Agência FAPESP – With the objective of incrementing cooperation between Brazil and the United Kingdom in studies about tropical diseases, a group of 30 scientists from the two countries participated at the UK-Brazil Tropical Medicine Workshop in February. The two-day event, organized by FAPESP and the British Consulate in São Paulo, was part of the Brazil-UK Partnership in Science and Innovation. The event was requested by the UK’s Academy of Medical Sciences (AMS).

According to Robert Souhami, secretary of external relations at AMS, the event’s main objective is to thoroughly discuss mechanisms for financing scientific study in the two countries and to propose ways to make them more efficient in promoting research partnerships for diseases such as malaria, leishmaniosis, esquistossomosis and Chagas disease. Both nations are home to excellent scientific knowledge in this area.

“The workshop involves discussions on science in the area of tropical medicine, but the main objective is to identify areas in which collaborations could be improved upon or developed, and to understand the functioning of financing mechanisms for scientific research in Brazil and the UK—and how these mechanisms can be improved to reach their maximum efficiency in the context of collaborative research,” Souhami told Agência FAPESP. 

According to Souhami, initiative for the workshop came about because of the need to increase Latin American presence in the Science and Innovation Network, created by the British Government in 2000. Headquartered in British consulates in over 20 nations, the Network is responsible for developing scientific collaboration between the UK and other nations in diverse areas of knowledge. 

 “When we look at the Science and Innovation Network’s map, we can see that most of the consulates where it is based are located in the European Union and, for historical reasons, in countries that were colonized by the British throughout history. But there is a huge gap in Latin America. The only consulate on the continent that is part of the network is the one in São Paulo,” says Souhami.

According to the scientist, the intention of increasing partnerships in the region—especially Brazil—is justified by the continual growth of Latin American research in terms of quality and quantity. “Over the last 20 years, we have seen incredible growth in scientific production in countries like Argentina, Mexico and especially Brazil, where it doubled between 2003 and 2008. Brazilian science has achieved an undeniably important level and it would be crazy if the UK were not trying to increase collaborations between the scientists from the two countries,” he said.

As the host of the Science and Innovation Network’s offices in Brazil, the city of São Paulo was chosen as a starting point for growing collaborations. The field of biomedical science was chosen as the area in which AMS would be the perfect partner.

According to Souhami, the AMS represents the highest level of the biomedical sciences in the UK in many areas of biomedical research. The academy has 900 members whose selection is based on scientific merit in an extremely competitive selection process.

“Within this highly qualified team, we have around 50 scientists that work with infectious diseases. Many of them are already involved in cooperative studies with Brazilian researchers. As this is also a very significant problem for Brazil, we thought that this would be the ideal topic to focus the workshop around and begin talks about increasing partnerships,” he said.

According to a study done by the British Embassy in Brazil, the country is the world’s largest producer of research in the areas of Tropical Medicine and Parasitology, which are responsible for, respectively, 18.4% and 12.3% of global production in these areas. The UK, on the other hand, is ranked second worldwide in terms of quality and impact of its medical and clinical studies.

According to Souhami, the workshop is focused on the discussion of existing mechanisms to fund cooperative projects between the two countries. “The objective is to understand how to best use these mechanisms and use collaboration to its maximum potential. We are discussing, for example, very interesting ways to finance young researchers together,” he affirmed. 

Aside from identifying possible research partnerships, collaborations, financing alternatives and study exchange programs for training, the workshop is also focusing on identifying obstacles to collaboration that exist today and point out areas of common interest for research.

“We want to identify the parts of areas of excellence in both countries that complement each other. In the first discussions we were already able to point out very promising areas for scientific collaboration. For example, we realized that the studies on Plasmodium vivax are becoming more important to Brazilian researchers all the time. Through partnerships in Indonesia, the UK has many studies on the topic. Clearly, Brazil should take part in these studies,” he says.