FAPESP celebrates 60th anniversary and announces new investments

Three new Engineering Research Centers, 15 new Science for Development Centers, and calls for proposals to fund research infrastructure, among others, will entail investment of BRL 990 million.

By Karina Toledo  |  Agência FAPESP – “Today I want to talk about dreams. Not daydreams, but dreams that come true and change our lives. That change people’s destinies, create wealth and jobs, and reduce inequality. That help people to be happy.” With these words, Marco Antonio Zago, President of FAPESP, opened the ceremony held this Wednesday (May 25) to celebrate its 60th anniversary. New investments in research activities totaling BRL 990 million were announced at the event, which was attended by eminent members of the scientific community and political authorities.

The new investments include three Engineering Research Centers (ERCs): one in the field of immuno-oncology, in partnership with pharmaceutical company GSK and the Albert Einstein Jewish Brazilian Institute of Education and Research (IIEP); one in intelligent networks and services, with telecommunications company Ericsson and the University of Campinas (UNICAMP); and a third in aerial mobility, with EMBRAER and the Aeronautical Technology Institute (ITA).

“The ERCs are a research funding model that integrates business and academia in a highly efficient way. New York State [in the US] also uses this model and currently has 15 of these centers. FAPESP will support 23 ERCs including the three announced today, for total investment in excess of BRL 1.5 billion in research activities, multiplying by five FAPESP’s allocation of BRL 325 million,” said Scientific Director Luiz Eugênio Mello.

Fifteen new Science for Development Centers (CCDs) were also announced during the event. FAPESP funds CCDs to foment problem-oriented research that has specific social and/or economic impacts, responds to public-sector challenges and is relevant to the development of São Paulo. The projects selected include initiatives to assure water and food security, pursue solutions for waste and packaging, develop biopharmaceuticals and urban public policies, promote the energy transition, and create innovations that improve human and animal health.

Other novelties included a call for proposals to establish three new Research, Innovation and Dissemination Centers (RIDCs); Researchers at Risk, an initiative to support scientists in conflict-ridden countries; Project Generation, to fund early-career researchers’ bold ideas; Proeduca, a program developed with the São Paulo State Department of Education to improve basic education; the Amazon+10 Fund, a partnership between FAPESP and research funding agencies in the nine states of the Brazilian Amazon to foster sustainable development in the region; and three new calls for research infrastructure funding proposals.

“FAPESP continues to make regular awards of scholarships and research grants, as it has always done, and we will do so increasingly in the years ahead,” said Carlos Américo Pacheco, FAPESP’s CEO. “In parallel, we’re announcing a number of additional activities thanks to the rapid recovery of São Paulo’s economy and the state’s rising tax revenue, as well as the decision by FAPESP’s Board of Trustees to require highly prudent management of our resources during the pandemic. Demand for funding fell in the period because many laboratories closed, and in-person activities at higher education and research institutions diminished. We protected our resources and stuck to the same quality criteria as before the pandemic. Thanks to all this, we’re now in a position to announce a number of initiatives that will be important to the recovery.”

As Zago recalled, in the last 60 years FAPESP has awarded 180,000 scholarships to support the formation of new researchers and 130,000 research grants, almost a third of which were for robust, high-value, long-term projects. It has led major scientific and technological changes in Brazil, such as implementation of the internet, genomics, and bioinformatics.

“The dream [of the people who created FAPESP] hasn’t changed,” he said. “We give the same priority to quality, merit and mission as we always have for the past six decades. However, the world has changed; Brazil has changed; society has changed. FAPESP has also changed.  Change is part of the lives of vigorous institutions because those that don’t evolve die or become obsolete. On the contrary, FAPESP has not only consolidated its more traditional forms of support for research but also continued to open up new fronts and new ways to promote knowledge-based development.”

State policy

Infectious disease specialist Dr. David Uip, recently appointed Secretary for Science, Research and Development in Health, represented Governor Rodrigo Garcia at the event and underscored the São Paulo State Government’s historical commitment to science, research, innovation and development.

“The governor has given me the mission of leading a department whose remit is facilitating relations between the public sector and private enterprise in all sectors of our state. We’ll do everything we can to speed up processes and remove barriers between the public and private sectors,” he said.

Zeina Latif, São Paulo State Secretary for Economic Development, also stressed the importance of public-private partnership. “The pandemic brought two unexpected revelations:  the valorization of science by society, and São Paulo state’s capacity to deploy a response. Our policies were successful, and we took care to reserve part of our budget for the funding of science and innovation,” she said. “It’s important to foster synergies among our universities so that we have more and more demand for research funding. The private sector has a key role to play, not only by helping to improve our policies but also by ramping up scale. We’re still investing less than we should to meet the needs of our nation and realize our potential. We can do so much more.”

The scientific community was represented by Helena Nader, President of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences (ABC), who said she owed her academic trajectory to FAPESP, which she considered a “great Brazilian institution”.

“An institution with a 60-year history, which shows that Brazil can do state policy and knows how to. The projects we’ve been hearing about today aren’t an isolated phenomenon. São Paulo is thinking of Brazil. The São Paulo State Government understands that education and science aren’t expenditure. They’re investment. We must restore state policy, and FAPESP is a model,” Nader said.

Carlão Pignatari, President of the São Paulo State Assembly (ALESP), spoke of gratitude for the history FAPESP is constructing for São Paulo. “We’re now experiencing the consequences of a choice we made in the past. And in future we’ll experience the consequences of the choices we make now,” he said. “Nothing could be more correct than the initiative of setting up a fund to support research in São Paulo. It’s no accident that this is the most developed state in Brazil. FAPESP has supported all of our country’s universities, even in times as difficult as these, with certain federal agencies facing lack of funds and obstacles being put up to hinder research funding. FAPESP and the São Paulo State Government are always on the side of science to defend the lives of our people.”

For Josué Gomes da Silva, President of the Federation of Industries of the State of São Paulo (FIESP), the longstanding support given to science and technology by FAPESP and the state government explains why São Paulo leads the national industrial scene. “Innovation and technology are foundational for FAPESP, and the only way for our nation to be wealthy and reduce inequality.”

Also attending the event were Celso Lafer and Carlos Vogt, former Presidents of FAPESP; José Fernando Perez, a former Scientific Director of FAPESP; Evaldo Ferreira Vilela, President of the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq); heads of public universities in São Paulo state; directors of research institutions; and researchers.