We are proud to announce a significant joint investment in to support partnership development and research collaboration with Brazilian institutions.
There are clear reasons for pursuing this engagement including the quality and ambition of Brazilian universities, the political and societal importance attached to education and research and the growing economic strength of the country fuelled in part by their richness in natural resources. The UK Government and many British companies are fostering closer relations with Brazil and therefore our initiatives align well with these developments.
Our schemes will enable Brazilian academics and postgraduate students to undertake research or training programmes at Birmingham and/or Nottingham, as follows:
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20 full fee PhD scholarships per annum for students from Brazil (divided equally between the University of Birmingham and The University of Nottingham), in collaboration with CAPES. For more information on these scholarships, including eligibility criteria and how to apply, please visit the CAPES scholarship page.
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Brazil Visiting Fellows Scheme which will provide assistance for 20 early career researchers from partner universities in Brazil to carry out identified research at Nottingham and/or Birmingham. 10 awards per institutions will be offered to the value of £1,000 per month for up to 3 months.
We have also agreed to establish a joint research investment fund with FAPESP (the funding council in São Paulo State) of £480k over the next 2 years, which will support collaborative research projects between the Universities of Birmingham and Nottingham and Brazilian institutions.
In addition, two joint University of Birmingham-University of Nottingham workshops with colleagues from partner institutions in Brazil are being planned for 2012 on the themes of Bio-Energy and Oil and Gas, and further thematic workshops are envisaged.
Priority areas for the fellowships and scholarships are listed below. These reflect interests and priorities gathered from our conversations with Brazilian universities as well as strategically important themes at Birmingham and Nottingham:
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Energy, with particular reference to sustainable energy, bioenergy, carbon capture and storage, oil and gas, nuclear energy and energy policy
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Food security
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Globalisation (particularly from an economics/business perspective)
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Imaging, neuroscience and cognition
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Astronomy
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Mathematics
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Materials (from nano to structural material properties)
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Digital economy
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Biotechnology, biological chemistry and drug discovery
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Global infection and healthcare
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Urban planning and regeneration
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Sustainable heritage and environment
We are also exploring ways in which we can encourage Birmingham staff and graduate students to undertake research and studies with collaborators in Brazilian institutions, through short term exchanges and possibly jointly-supervised graduate programmes. We have recently received scholarship funding from Santander for target countries (including Brazil) to support both incoming masters degree students and outgoing mobility students. The intention is to use the mobility funding to support outgoing Birmingham postgraduate exchange students to Brazil from the 2012-13 academic year.