INCOBRA - Increasing International Science, Technology and Innovation Cooperation between Brazil and the European Union

The European Commission recently (13 October 2016) released the roadmap for STI international cooperation with Brazil. The document reinforces and reaffirms  the importance of cooperation on research and innovation in addressing the shared economic, environmental and societal challenges.

The roadmap presents 10 priority areas for the development of joined and coordinated cooperation strategies. The Joint Steering Committee (JSC) which oversees the implementation of the EU-Brazil S&T Agreement has emphasised the need to deepen, scale up and open cooperation in the selected thematic areas. We briefly highlight them below (for more details please check the full document).

• Marine research, which is one of the main developing areas of joint interest
• Bioeconomy and agriculture,  where the EU is considering keeping a multilateral approach involving the key states all over the world.
• Energy, where the advanced biofuels field was the topic of a coordinated call in the WP 2016-17 of Horizon 2020 which aims at exploiting synergies between Brazil and Europe in terms of scientific expertise and resources in this area.
• Nanotechnology, where nanosafety is already a key cooperation domain, and where more areas will be explored.
• Health, where a dedicated Horizon 2020 call on ZIKA was launched in March 2016 to set up a research network across the Latin America region to facilitate, coordinate and implement urgent research to combat the ZIKA outbreak, and lay the foundation for a preparedness research network against any future emerging severe infectious threats.
• High-speed aerospace and aviation technologies, as Brazil is an active partner in several EU projects.
• Environment, with specific focus on sustainable urbanization, and particularly on 'sustainable and re-naturing cities' and on the building of a platform of technologies inspired by nature.
• ICT, which is another prominent cooperation area between EU and Brazil. The three coordinated calls funded jointly by Brazil and the EU implemented so far, will be followed by a fourth joint call under the LEIT-ICT part of WP 2016-17 of Horizon 2020, addressing the areas of 5G, Cloud Computing and IoT Pilots. Building on FIWARE collaboration, new cooperation priorities are focusing on the Next Generation Internet.
• Research infrastructures, where cooperation with Brazil is explicitly foreseen in the area of biodiversity and carbon cycle in particular in connection with the LIFEWATCH ESFRI project.
• Regional innovation systems, which are considered a priority for social-economic development by the Brazilian National Plan for Regional Development - PNDR (2011). In this area the EU-Brazil cooperation offers unique conditions for piloting the adaptation of the European Smart Specialisation Strategy approach to the Brazilian context.

Framework conditions for research cooperation with Brazil have been improving over the last decade. The government adopted two consecutive National Science, Technology and Innovation Strategies, whose key elements included an improved innovation regulatory framework, a larger and more accessible funding structure and international cooperation.

The setup of a co-funding scheme by the Research Foundation of the State of São Paulo (FAPESP) and by the Brazilian National Council of Research Foundations (Confap) will provide Brazilian researchers with funding sources to support their participation in Horizon 2020 projects. The nomination of a National Contact Point for Horizon 2020 at the University of São Paulo is also an important step to facilitate Brazilian participation in Horizon 2020.