On August 13 Agência FAPESP reached the mark of 100,000 subscribers to its electronic bulletin. Launched by the Foundation on June 24 of 2003 as a free electronic news service, the agency has become a reference point for researchers, students and communication vehicles, with its publication of reports on the results of research, interviews with scientists and news from the fields of science, technology and innovation in Brazil. “One of FAPESP’s legal and statutory responsibilities is to disclose the results of the research it funds. When the Foundation was created, the means of communication were different from today. The digital revolution led to very significant change and in reaching such a significant audience the agency is an example of this change,” said Celso Lafer, Chairman of FAPESP.
Agência FAPESP sends bulletins from Monday to Friday to subscribers who registered via the Internet (www.agencia.fapesp.br/assine). The reports and news published by the agency are reproduced or help provide subject matter for communication vehicles such as O Estado de S. Paulo, Folha de S. Paulo, O Globo, Exame, UOL and Terra. The bulletins are also received by journalists from publications located in all regions in Brazil. In 2011, 482 vehicles from all over the country reproduced content from Agência FAPESP, with more than 5,700 publications.
“The mark of 100,000 subscribers reveals that Agência FAPESP provides a quality, useful service that is recognized by the scientific community. In addition to informing the community, the agency contributes to scientific disclosure by reporting on relevant themes and material in the Brazilian printed and electronic media,” said Carlos Henrique de Brito Cruz, FAPESP’s scientific director.
Despite dedicating itself mainly to publicizing research carried out in São Paulo State and supported by FAPESP, the agency has readers in all Brazilian states. The cities with the greatest number of subscribers are São Paulo, Campinas, Rio de Janeiro, Ribeirão Preto, Belo Horizonte, Brasília, São Carlos, Curitiba and Salvador. There is also a substantial number of readers abroad, including Brazilians who live in other countries, or foreigners who subscribe to the English edition of the bulletin. Abroad, the countries with the most readers of the Portuguese edition are the United States, Portugal, France, Germany and Canada. The edition in English is most widely read in the United States, the United Kingdom, India, Germany and France.
“Having an active and operative base of 100,000 subscribers shows how right the original idea was and, above all, the development and the putting into practice of this idea, which the agency team maintains in a creative and original way,” said Carlos Vogt, director of the Virtual University of São Paulo State (Univesp) and of the Laboratory of Advanced Studies in Journalism (Labjor) of the State University of Campinas. It was Vogt who had the idea in 2003 of launching an electronic scientific disclosure vehicle, when he was the Chairman of FAPESP. The agency’s model, he observed, inspired other initiatives. “Such is the case with the Agência DiCYT, of the University of Salamanca in Spain, whose set up was based on the Agência FAPESP model.”
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