It’s amazing what you can do on three hours sleep. That’s what many Canadian university presidents are realizing (or being reminded of) today after flight delays and re-routes had us finally arriving at our hotel in São Paulo at 5 a.m. this morning. We had set out for the airport in Rio for the short one-hour flight at 5:30 p.m. the day before.
Yet our delegates didn’t miss a beat when several of them participated as moderators and panelists at the Canada-Brazil Innovation Nations Forum this morning.
Stephen Toope, AUCC chair and UBC president, speaking at the Canada-Brazil Innovation Nations Forum.
We also held a news conference today where McGill University Principal Heather Munroe-Blum, University of Manitoba President David Barnard and University of Victoria President David Turpin gave highlights of their institutions’ partnerships with Brazil and their views on strengthening this collaboration.
With a number of key Brazilian media outlets in the room, the University of British Columbia President and AUCC Chair Stephen Toope announced that during the Brazil mission Canada’s universities are announcing 75 new agreements and scholarship programs, valued at $6.74 million.
More exciting news today was the announcement by Mitacs CEO Arvind Gupta of an additional $10.25 million for undergraduate internships and graduate fellowships. Canada’s Mitacs connects university-based researchers, including graduate students and faculty members, with Canadian companies through collaborative research projects and provides research internships to top international undergraduate students. Mitacs announced plans to bring 450 Brazilian undergraduate students to Canada from 2012 to 2014 through its Globalink program. Their announcement includes $3.5 million to fund Globalink Graduate Fellowships – opportunities for student alumni of the Globalink program, including those from Brazil, to pursue graduate studies in Canada.
Following a luncheon with His Excellency, Governor General David Johnston, at which Gary Goodyear, Minister of State for Science and Technology spoke about the role of research in driving commerce and building prosperity, the AUCC delegation visited FAPESP, the state of São Paulo’s main research funding agency. This included a very engaging discussion about opportunities for funded research partnerships with Brazilian scientists.
Science Without Borders is of course a hot topic of discussion this week, and this evening our presidents met a number of Science Without Borders’ students who will be coming to Canada. The evening reception also brought together alumni of Canadian universities living in Brazil.
Our university communities are hoping to welcome the first 500 of 12,000 Science Without Borders’ students coming to Canada to their campuses this fall.
Tomorrow we’ll have an opportunity to see first-hand the very best in Brazilian research facilities when we visit the University of Campinas (Unicamp). This is an outstanding example of the high-end facilities and leading research teams that Canadian students and faculty will benefit from in the coming years, as two-way mobility between Canadian and Brazilian institutions grows.
