BRAZIL: Oil giant investing millions in universities

Brazil's new oil riches have proven to be a boon for the country's universities. Petrobas, the state-controlled company developing new reserves, has poured US$700 million into university science and technology programmes in the last three years.

When Dilma Rousseff (pictured) was sworn in as Brazil's new President on 1 January, she called the offshore oil reserves the country's "passport to the future".

But transforming anywhere between 50 and 150 billion barrels of oil trapped beneath a subterranean layer of salt hundreds of kilometres offshore into a wealthy society is proving to be a gargantuan task.

It requires a new elite group of researchers to develop the technologies required to tap these ultra-deep reserves as well as an army of engineers to design, build and operate a vast array of machinery from the ocean floor to refineries.

In a country with a poor educational record, producing enough qualified people to carry this out is challenging. Despite progress in recent decades, especially in the production of PhDs, the country's higher education sector has not been producing enough graduates or researchers to meet the economy's needs.

In response Petrobras, which is leading the development of the oil reserves, is making a massive investment in higher education sector. Of the R$4.8 billion (US$2.8 billion) the company invested in science and technology between 2007 and 2009, R$1.2 billion (US$700 million) went to Brazilian universities and research institutes.

It has also created a series of 50 networks with partner universities, technical institutes and research institutes across Brazil to help it meet its research and development needs, as well as train engineers. So far 110 universities and higher institutions are participating.

"The importance of this investment is very great because it includes both teaching and research and development, affecting universities in every region of Brazil," says Professor Dimas Dias Brito, who heads a new centre of applied geosciences focusing on oil exploration and production, which received a $5.5 million investment from Petrobras.

"With this there will be an improvement in the infrastructure of various scientific and technological segments, which will be positive for academia. It will allow us to be better prepared to respond to the challenges of contemporary Brazil in the coming years."

But some in the education sector caution that the investment of just one company, and a state-controlled one at that, should not distract from a wider problem.

"It does not seem to me that these investments by Petrobras on their own will have a direct influence on resolving the deficit of professionals for the job market," warns Dimas.

Experts point to the wider issue: a traditional lack of investment by private companies, although more recently there has been an increase in funding by businesses of research.

"One of the principle problems is that investment in research and development in particular is almost all public. Private investment in R&D is still very low," says Professor Armando Milioni, academic director of the science and technology institute at the Federal University of São Paulo.

To overcome this, says Milioni, Brazil will need to expand its public university system. For every student to graduate from a public institution, the private sector graduates three.

"Nothing against the private system but the evidence shows that the great preference of private institutions is to offer courses which do not demand great investments in laboratories," he notes.