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E.C. Bilateral S&T agreements

International Cooperation Partner Countries (ICPC)

International Cooperation Partner Countries (ICPC)

Policy framework


News/Events

17-19 March 2013

Visit to Brazil of Professor Ann Glover, Chief Scientific Adviser to Mr JMD Barroso, President of the European Commission. During her visit Professor Glover discussed Science and Technology related policy issues of mutual Brazil-EU interest.

14 March 2013

The President of Brazil launched the Innovation Enterprise plan (Plano Inova Empresa - PIE). The plan aims at making Brazilian enterprises more competitive on the international markets through technological innovation and increased productivity. During the ceremony, the President highlighted the setting up and the importance of the EMBRAPII (Brazilian Institute for Research in Industrial Innovation).

24 January 2013

The VI EU-Brazil Summit was held on January 24, 2013 in Brasilia. The Leaders "agreed that the VI Meeting of the Brazil-EU Bilateral Steering Committee on Science, Technology and Innovation in mid-2013, in Brussels, should provide an opportunity to upgrade and more strategically orient, the bilateral cooperation in Science, Technology and Innovation, and also identify the most suitable financial instruments on both sides". Moreover, "they welcomed the signature of the Cooperation Arrangement between the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MCTI) for scientific and cooperative activities in fields of common interest, as a follow-up to the Letter of Intent signed during the V EU-Brazil Summit in October 2011."

23 January 2013

Following the recent completion of legislative requisites in Brazil the Agreement for Cooperation between the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM) and Brazil in the field of fusion energy research comes into force.

21- 22 November 2012

Brussels: fifth meeting of the Brazil - European Union Dialogue on Information Society.

Policy Dialogue

The science, technology and innovation cooperation is to be seen in the context of the broader of the EU-Brazil Strategic Partnership initiated at the first bilateral summit in Lisbon in 2007 and most lately reconfirmed in the sixth Summit held in Brasília in January 2013.

Signed on 19/1/2004 the Bilateral Agreement for scientific and technological cooperation between the European Community and the Federative Republic of Brazil came into force on 7/8/2007. It was renewed for another five years in 2012. The objective of the agreement is to encourage, develop and facilitate cooperative activities in areas of common interest by carrying out and supporting scientific and technological research and development activities. The Joint Steering Committee Meetings (JSCM) are normally held once a year. The counterparts are: The Ministry of External Relations and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MCTI) from the Brazilian side and from the EU side, Directorate General for Research and Innovation.

The main areas of cooperation are: environment; information and communication technologies; food, agriculture, fisheries, and biotechnology; health; nano-technologies, transport materials and new production technologies; energy; social sciences and research as well as infrastructures.

Brazil ranks sixth among the International Partner Countries in terms of participation in FP7. As with all our major partner countries, the dual approach was used over the lifetime of FP7 to stimulate international participation of Brazilian entities in FP7. This is characterised by:

- the openness of FP7, where bottom up participation of Brazilian public and private research performing organisations is promoted;
- targeted actions, through which cooperation on particular pre-selected topics are stimulated.

The instruments for the targeted actions included coordinated calls as well as Specific International Cooperation Actions (SICAs). There are in total 116 research projects with some 200 Brazilian participations, and the EU contribution to the Brazilian partners is approximately €28 million.

  • Signed on 27/11/2009, the Agreement for cooperation (CA) between the European Atomic Energy Community and the Government of the Federative Republic of Brazil in the field of fusion energy research was ratified by the Brazilian Senate on 28/12/2012 and entered into force in January 2013. The CA constitutes the appropriate framework to encompass and promote further collaborative activities and projects and its main objective is to intensify cooperation between the Parties in the areas covered by their respective fusion programs, on the basis of mutual benefit and overall reciprocity, in order to advance in developing fusion energy as future sustainable energy source.
  • Signed on 24/1/2013 in Brasilia, the Cooperation Arrangement between the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) and the Brazilian Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MCTI) was one of the highlights of the 6th EU-Brazil Summit. The objective is to strengthen and further structure scientific and other cooperative activities in the areas of disaster prevention and crisis management; climate change and sustainable management of natural resources and ecosystem services; energy, including bioenergy and smart grids; food security; bio-economy; information and communication technologies (ICT), as well as nanotechnologies.
  • The Information Society Dialogue is under the responsibility of the Directorate General CONNECT and the Ministry of Science Technology and Innovation on the Brazilian side. The EU-Brazil Dialogue in the Information Society field between the European Commission and Brazilian authorities - covering aspects of policy, regulation and research & development cooperation in the ICT sector - has been strengthened over the last years and has been made annual. The 5th and latest session of the annual Dialogue that the European Commission and the Brazilian Government have established in the ICT field in the context of the EU-Brazil Strategic Partnership, took place in Brussels on 21-22 November 2012.
  • DG Education and Culture and CAPES (Coordination for Improvement of High Level Education - linked to the Ministry of Education of Brazil) are responsible for the policy dialogue on education. A Memorandum of Understanding between the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the European Commission was signed in July 2007, the main focus of which is on academic exchanges, the creation of an Institute of European Studies, and policy dialogue. A Joint Declaration on Education and Training was signed on May 2009. In 2011, following Commissioner Vassiliou's visit to Brazil in April and the EU-Brazil Summit in Brussels in October, higher education featured in the resulting Joint Statement. The first EU-Brazil meeting of the policy dialogue on education took place on 21 November 2011 in Brazil and led to a Joint statement. The issues included the mobility of students, academic staff, researchers, recognition, participation in EU academic cooperation programmes.

Projects

  • The CLIM-AMAZON joint Brazilian-European scientific initiative supported by the EU (European Union) through the FP7 (Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development) under the INCO-Lab scheme. This co-operation aims at fostering exchanges between Brazilian and European scientists in the area of geosciences and environmental studies, by means of scientific meetings, visits of experienced European researchers in Brazil, PhD and Post Doc calls open to European universities proposing to develop new research approaches in the Amazon region, a world-class example for climate research.
    Website: http://www.clim-amazon.eu/
  • The B-Bice+ (Brazilian Bureau to Enhance the Bilateral Cooperation between Brazil and Europe) project started in 2012. The European partners are the Development Research Insitute of France (IRD), the International Bureau of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the Greek Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas (FORTH). The Brazilian partners are the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), the Fundacao Universidade de Brasilia (UnB) and Associação Nacional de Entidades Promotoras de Empreendimentos inovadores (Anprotec).

    B.BIC+ aims to improve the cooperation in Science, Technology and Innovation between Brazil and the EU. It is a successor project to both the B-Bice and APORTA projects. It also has a quarterly newsletter and a website and developed a Competency Map of the Brazilian Institutions created to help expand the knowledge of the Brazilian competencies in the EU. In the new phase of the project, it also has a work package for the relations between the EU and the Member States as well as enhancement of SME's and enterprise participation in the new Horizon 2020 Programme.
  • Brazil is a partner of the INCO-Net ALCUENET - Latin America, Caribbean and European Union Network on Research and Innovation, 2012-2016. Coordinator Ministry of Science and Technology (Argentina). The European countries involved are: Austria, Spain, Finland, France, Portugal and Norway. The Brazilian counterpart is the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MCTI).

Background documents

  • Bilateral Agreement for scientific and technological cooperation between the European Community and the Federative Republic of Brazil
  • Agreement for cooperation (CA) between the European Atomic Energy Community and the Government of the Federative Republic of Brazil in the field of fusion energy research
  • Cooperation Arrangement between the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) and the Brazilian Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MCTI)
  • ERAWATCH country report
  • The World Bank gathers a wide range of social and economic data to improve understanding of the challenges faced in each country. Data for Brazil can be found here
  • EC Delegation in Brazil
  • ERA WATCH profile of the partner
  • The European Research Council (ERC) supports top researchers from anywhere in the world. The mission of the National Contact Points (NCPs) is to raise awareness, inform and advise on ERC funding opportunities. NCPs can also support in the preparation, submission and follow-up of an ERC grant application. The National Contact Point for Brazil can be found here.
  • Created in 1985, the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MCTI). The MCTI's responsibilities include: national policy on scientific and technological research and innovation; the planning, coordination, supervision and control of scientific and technological activities; policies for developing information technology and automation; national policy on biosecurity; seeing; nuclear policy and control of exports of sensitive goods and services. It has directly links it fourteen Research Institutes. Website
  • The MCTI also oversees the two most important federal research funding agencies - the Financing Body for Studies and Projects (Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos – FINEP) and the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico – CNPq)
  • Most states in Brazil have also their own research funding agencies. Some of these dispose over sizeable budgets. These agencies are regrouped in an Association of State Research Funding Organisations (CONFAP).
  • The main goal of the Science without Borders (Ciência sem Fronteiras, CSF) program is to promote the consolidation and expansion of science, technology and innovation in Brazil by means of international exchange and mobility.

Contacts

Policy Officer responsible: Dirk Reyntjens

Research and Innovation Counsellor in the EU Delegation in Brasilia: Piero Venturi