{"id":249892,"date":"2017-12-05T17:52:54","date_gmt":"2017-12-05T19:52:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/?p=249892\/"},"modified":"2017-12-05T17:56:32","modified_gmt":"2017-12-05T19:56:32","slug":"symmetrical-relationships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/symmetrical-relationships\/","title":{"rendered":"Symmetrical relationships"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Marcelo Cipis<\/span><\/a>Participation by FAPESP in the Trans-Atlantic Platform for Social Sciences and Humanities (T-AP), an alliance of 12 funding agencies from the Americas and Europe responsible for the recent call for projects in digital humanities (see report<\/a><\/em>), is an example of the Foundation\u2019s efforts since 2007 to expand the degree of internationalization of science in the state of S\u00e3o Paulo. According to Claudia Bauzer Medeiros, coordinator of the FAPESP Research Program on eScience and FAPESP representative on the T-AP, the goal of the alliance is to connect researchers in the humanities and social sciences on both sides of the Atlantic in order to maximize the advancement of knowledge. \u201cWe would like our researchers to use collaboration opportunities to conduct even more sophisticated research and share our experience with the international groups, in a high-level relationship,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

This type of alliance is being duplicated in other initiatives.\u00a0 One of them is the Belmont Forum, a group that comprises 27 agencies from several countries, funding research projects on climate change.\u00a0 FAPESP is represented by Gilberto C\u00e2mara, a researcher from the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) who chairs the Forum\u2019s Steering Committee together with Kurt Vandenberghe, named by the European Commission.\u00a0 \u00a0Other examples are the recent agreements concluded between the Foundation and the Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases (GACD), a consortium of public agencies headquartered in London that funds programs on quality of life and chronic diseases, and the Global Research Collaboration for Infectious Disease Preparedness (GloPID-R), a network of organizations that sponsor research on infectious diseases that includes 23 funding agencies.<\/p>\n

In the international collaboration initiatives in which it participates, FAPESP would like to establish relationships governed by symmetry and balance, notes Carlos Henrique de Brito Cruz, scientific director of the Foundation. \u201cThe goal is that the best researchers from S\u00e3o Paulo collaborate with the best scientists in the world to expand the scientific, economic and social impact of S\u00e3o Paulo science,\u201d he says. \u201cResearch studies should be developed, written and, if approved, carried out jointly, in balanced partnerships.\u00a0 Our strategy is based on the fact that we have world-class competitive research groups in S\u00e3o Paulo and that it would make no sense to promote international inclusion in a subordinate role.\u201d<\/p>\n

Internationalization efforts are being pursued at various levels.\u00a0 The main one is related to bilateral cooperation agreements FAPESP has signed with 50 funding agencies from 25 countries\u2014it is through these that the Foundation funds the activities of S\u00e3o Paulo State researchers, leaving it up to the foreign agency to cover the work of the partner researcher on projects developed jointly. \u201cMore than 70 thematic projects have already been carried out together in this type of international collaboration efforts,\u201d Brito Cruz notes. \u00a0The partnerships involve the world\u2019s leading funding agencies. In April 2017, FAPESP and the Max Planck Society of Germany announced the release of the first call for proposals under the cooperation agreement signed by the two institutions in 2015 (see Pesquisa FAPESP<\/em> Issue No. 217<\/a>). Young postdoctoral researchers can submit proposals to set up research groups at S\u00e3o Paulo universities or institutions. These teams are expected to work together with researchers from the 83 Max Planck Institutes in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, the United States and Luxembourg.<\/p>\n

\"\"Marcelo Cipis<\/span><\/a>Several cooperation agreements with agencies have generated impressive outcomes. In 2011, FAPESP and the National Science Foundation (NSF), the principal basic science funding agency in the United States, established a partnership to conduct studies about Brazil\u2019s biodiversity, connecting the Foundation\u2019s Biota-FAPESP Program and the NSF\u2019s Dimensions of Biodiversity Program. Two collaborative projects conducted under the scope of this initiative\u2014one about the Atlantic Forest and the other about the Amazon\u2014have contributed to the advancement of an interdisciplinary field in Brazil and the United States known as geogenomics, through which biologists and geologists join forces to explain biological diversity (see Pesquisa FAPESP <\/em>Issue No. 242<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Another example is the thematic project concluded in 2015 that brought together teams led by researchers Jos\u00e9 Antunes Rodrigues of the Ribeir\u00e3o Preto School of Medicine at the University of S\u00e3o Paulo (FMRP-USP) and David Murphy of England\u2019s University of Bristol. The partnership, established through an agreement signed between FAPESP and the Research Councils UK (RCUK), studied how aging and habits such as sedentarism and excessive salt consumption affect gene expression in some regions of the brain, causing imbalances in the control of heartbeats and blood pressure.\u00a0 In an article published in 2016 in the journal Molecular Biology<\/em>, the researchers identified two mechanisms through which the RASD1 gene acts on neurons of the hypothalamus and interferes in the control of sodium intake.<\/p>\n

The second level of the internationalization strategy provides support to the first level and is related to the agreements signed with 119 universities and research institutions from 18 countries.\u00a0 These agreements both facilitate the exchange of individual researchers and potentially pair them with international agencies for collaboration.\u00a0 To expand partnerships with foreign universities, FAPESP launched the S\u00e3o Paulo Researchers in International Collaboration (SPRINT) program in 2014, offering funding for the initial phase of international research collaborations, the so-called seed funding. The goal is to allow researchers from S\u00e3o Paulo and institutions abroad to work together on more ambitious projects. \u201cFunds in amounts of $10,000 to $15,000 are awarded for a one- to two-year period, upon the conclusion of which the partners are expected to conceive of and write a robust research project to be submitted to FAPESP and the institution in the other country,\u201d says Brito Cruz.<\/p>\n

The third level is the traditional one of sending researchers and students abroad and welcoming visiting scientists to institutions in Brazil.\u00a0 FAPESP is currently funding 867 scholarships abroad. Of this total, 194 are research scholarships awarded to PhDs who are conducting activities at institutions abroad and 673 are 4- to 12-month research internships at centers abroad, awarded to students at levels ranging from undergraduate to postdoctoral as part of the research project they are already involved in under a FAPESP-funded regular scholarship in Brazil.\u00a0 Travel to Brazil by visiting researchers for periods of up to 12 months brings nearly 200 experienced scientists to Brazil each year to collaborate in ongoing projects carried out by S\u00e3o Paulo scientists. \u201cEvery working day, we welcome a new visiting researcher,\u201d Brito Cruz points out. There are 60 scholarships to visiting researchers from abroad currently underway.<\/p>\n

In addition to these efforts, the Foundation has also managed to attract foreign companies to support research in S\u00e3o Paulo.\u00a0 Since 2006, a cooperation agreement with Microsoft Research, the research arm of Microsoft, has issued eight calls for proposals to support projects in information technology and communications that have potential economic and social applications.<\/p>\n

The most recent of these are some of the Engineering Research Centers (ERC) co-funded by FAPESP and companies for up to 10 years.\u00a0 These bring together researchers from S\u00e3o Paulo institutions and the private sector to face research challenges of interest to the companies. The French ERC Peugeot-Citro\u00ebn, for example, is dedicated to developing engines that run on biofuels and involves researchers from the University of Campinas (Unicamp), USP, the Technological Institute of Aeronautics (ITA) and the Mau\u00e1 Institute of Technology (IMT).<\/p>\n

Clean energy<\/strong>
\nOther centers co-funded by FAPESP include partners such as GlaxoSmithKline, focused on sustainable chemistry, and BG, which seeks research applications in natural gas.\u00a0 In April 2017, the launch of a new center, in partnership with Shell, was announced, aimed at research in clean energy.\u00a0 The Center\u2019s first five years of operation are expected to be funded by a contribution of R$16.7 million divided between FAPESP and Shell. \u201cWe face a huge challenge of providing more energy to a growing world population and searching for a better quality of life,\u201d said Shell Brasil President Andr\u00e9 Ara\u00fajo to the Ag\u00eancia FAPESP<\/em>. \u201cWe need to monitor this growth in demand while at the same time produce more energy with fewer CO2 <\/sub>emissions.\u201d Small technology companies are also part of the internationalization strategy through cooperation agreements concluded with the National Research Council of Canada and the R&D Center of the Israel Innovation Authority (MATIMOP).<\/p>\n

In April 2017, an opportunity for international collaboration for Brazilians was launched by the Brazilian National Council of State Funding Agencies (CONFAP) and the program of the European Research Council (ERC) of the European Union (see sidebar<\/em>). Researchers who have already completed postdoctoral internships can apply for an internship of up to 12 months, with research groups in Europe that work in 26 designated fields, such as synthetic chemistry, neurosciences or bioinformatics.\u00a0 More than 300 principal investigators from the ERC have expressed interest in welcoming visiting Brazilians to their groups, according to CONFAP, which organized a March 2017 meeting to present the opportunities to representatives from state research funding foundations. \u00a0\u201cAlthough this type of initiative does not have the same symmetry we seek in our internationalization strategy, it can play an important role in establishing new points of contact between Brazilian and European researchers,\u201d says Carlos Henrique de Brito Cruz.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Brazilians in the European program<\/strong>
\nFour Brazilian researchers are heading-up world-class groups<\/em><\/p>\n

The European Research Council (ERC) is supporting world-class research groups, investing 17% of the \u20ac77 billion budget under Horizon 2020, the European Union\u2019s principal scientific program.\u00a0 Four Brazilians are heading up projects under the program.\u00a0 One of them is Artur \u00c1vila, winner of the 2014 Fields Medal, an honor awarded to mathematicians under the age of 40 (see Pesquisa FAPESP<\/em> Issue No. 223<\/a>). \u00c1vila, a researcher at the Brazilian Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics (IMPA) in Rio de Janeiro, and director of research at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in France, submitted a project to the ERC in 2010, in the field of dynamic systems, proposing development of a theory capable of predicting the evolution of natural and human phenomena.\u00a0 He was selected under the Starting Grant category, which offers up to \u20ac1.5 million to researchers for a period of up to five years.<\/p>\n

The Brazilians considered for funding by the ERC have been abroad for some time. That is the case of S\u00e3o Paulo engineer Elison Matioli, a professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) who left Brazil in 2003. In February 2016, he was selected by the ERC and received \u20ac1.8 million in funding to conduct a project in the field of nanotechnology over the next five years.\u00a0 His goal is to develop a class of semiconductors that help produce more-productive power converters. After receiving undergraduate degrees in electronic systems engineering from the Polytechnic School of the University of S\u00e3o Paulo (Poli-USP) and physics and applied mathematics from the \u00c9cole Polytechnique in France in 2003, Matioli completed his PhD at the University of California in 2006 and did postdoctoral research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m coordinating a team of 10 PhD candidates and two postdoctoral researchers from several countries,\u201d the engineer says. \u201cUnfortunately, none of them is from Brazil.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ERC funds are granted directly to the principal investigator.\u00a0 If he changes institutions, the grant goes with him.\u00a0 That is why institutions try to hold onto their \u201cERCs,\u201d says Eduardo Lee, a researcher at the Condensed Matter Physics Center (IFIMAC) at the Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain, another Brazilian included under the program. A native of S\u00e3o Carlos (SP), Lee left Brazil in 2004 and earned is PhD in Physics at the Max Planck Institute in Germany after completing undergraduate and master\u2019s degrees in materials engineering at the Federal University of S\u00e3o Carlos (UFSCar). For the project, scheduled to begin in June, he will have nearly \u20ac 1.75 million. \u201cMy research is on topological superconductors, with potential applications in quantum computing. \u00a0I plan to develop a methodology to obtain a topological superconductor based on semiconductor quantum dots,\u201d Lee explains.<\/p>\n

Another Brazilian selected by the program is economist \u00c1ureo de Paula, a professor at University College London (UCL). With \u20ac1.1 million in funding, he has been working since 2013 on a project that is seeking to develop a model for econometric analysis of social interactions involving companies and individuals.\u00a0 The goal of the study is to contribute towards understanding the factors in play in situations such as when a company decides whether or not to enter a particular market.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FAPESP strategy seeks balance in international collaboration ","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[156],"tags":[220,234],"coauthors":[98],"class_list":["post-249892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cover","tag-communication","tag-finance"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249892\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249892"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=249892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}