BRAZIL: US, Europe pursue higher education ties

Brazil and America are set to revive ties in education and research following a meeting last month between Barack Obama and his Brazilian counterpart Dilma Rousseff. The presidents ordered a ministerial-level review of existing bilateral programmes covering higher education exchanges and called for a plan to deepen cooperation. Last week a European commissioner also paid a high-level visit to Brazil to strengthen policy cooperation in higher education and strategic ties with the South American giant.

A new agreement with the United States would help to reverse a contraction in the number of Brazilians studying overseas that followed a fiscal squeeze in the 1990s, when the number of doctoral students receiving federal scholarships to study abroad declined from around 4,000 at the start of the 1990s to just 1,700 today.

Strong economic growth in recent years has seen a major expansion in the tertiary sector as Brazil's economy demands an ever-greater numbers of scientists and engineers. The country has more than doubled its investment in research and development since the 1990s, placing it in the top 15 R&D performers, and it is seeking to deepen links with research communities in developed economies.

With plenty of jobs in the local economy and increased research money available, education experts are less fearful of large numbers of graduates heading to the US. "The success rate for funding at the NSF [US National Science Foundation] is around 19% while the success rate here at FAPESP is 55%. So the chances of obtaining funding are higher here in Brazil," said Carlos de Brito Cruz, Scientific Director of the São Paulo Research Foundation.

As well as better chances of funding, Brazil is also making strides in overcoming a slow start to improve its research and development environment.

"Our research universities only started to develop in the 1970s. But in the last 40 years we're witnessing a new cohort of professionally trained research professors. There has been great expansion and many opportunities are now available for those wanting to pursue research in Brazil, something that was not the case in the past," said Divonzir Gusso, a researcher at the Brazilian government's elite Institute of Applied Economic Research, Ipea.

Confidence that sending more students to the US for research will not result in a Brazilian brain drain is borne out by numbers from the National Science Foundation in the US.

Brazilians ranked lowest in stay rates among foreign recipients of US doctorates in science and engineering. In 2007 just over 30% of Brazilians who received doctorates in the US five years previously were still working in the country, far below China and India and even behind Japan, Korea and Taiwan.

"Looking at the hard data from the NSF, it is clear that the great majority of Brazilians who study in the US intend to return home so I do not think there is a risk of brain drain," said Ipea's Gusso.

Areas singled out by the two governments for enhanced exchanges are science, health, technology, engineering, computer science and maths. Ties are to be strengthened through institutions such as the Fulbright Foundation, the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education and the National Science Foundation in the US, and Brazil's National Council for the Development of Science and Technology (CNPq) and CAPES - the agency in the country's education ministry that helps coordinate the supply of higher education personnel.

"President Dilma showed great interest in having more Brazilian students doing postgraduate studies in the US, in the exact sciences in particular," said Antonio Patriota, Brazil's foreign minister, after the meeting. "This is with a view to our common interest of increasing the competitiveness of our economies, our industries and our exports."

Meanwhile, a visit to Brazil last week by Androulla Vassiliou, the European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth, was aimed at strengthening policy cooperation in higher education and culture. She met with Patriota, Minister of Education Fernando Haddad and Minister of Culture Ana Buarque de Hollanda.

"The European Union is committed to strengthening its strategic partnership with Brazil and I believe that closer cooperation on higher education and culture can contribute to this objective," said Vassiliou in a statement ahead of her visit.

Her meetings in Brasilia marked the launch of policy dialogues that will lead to forums for policy-makers and professionals focused on jointly agreed priorities in higher education and culture.

The Commission also said it wanted to make it easier for students and academics to move between the EU and Brazil, and to encourage cooperation between universities.

Since 2004, more than 1,700 Brazilian students and scholars have studied and worked in Europe through the Erasmus Mundus programme, which supports joint masters and doctoral programmes, the Commission said. More than 40 Brazilian research institutions and 32 researchers have also received financial backing through the Marie Curie Actions, which support international exchanges for researchers.