Ministers approve action plan during meeting in China
Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa have approved an action plan for cooperation in innovation from 2017 to 2020, informed the Secretary of Technological Development and Innovation of the Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovations and Communications (MCTIC), Alvaro Prata, who attended the 5th Ministerial Meeting on Science, Technology and Innovation of the BRICS Dialogue Forum, on July 18, in Hangzhou. China hosts the 9th Group Summit from 3-4 September in Xiamen. At the meeting, the group's work agenda until 2018 was also updated, with three events planned for Brazilian cities.
According to Prata, innovation dominated the first Chinese edition of the annual meeting between the scientific departments of the five emerging economies. "Each minister presented and discussed the national policies and strategies adopted to promote growth based on innovation, in order to exchange experiences and outline possibilities for cooperation", he explains. "We made an overview of our public and private investment in research and development [R&D] and explored Brazilian initiatives to support technology-based entrepreneurship, highlighting our efforts through startup programs and Embrapii [Brazilian Research and Industrial Innovation]."
The secretary highlighted China's maturation in science and technology, expressed by high investment in R&D, and the humanitarian concerns of South Africa, the next country to preside over the group. "The South African Minister of Science and Technology, Naledi Pandor, brought this up in the perspective that advances in technological development and innovation must be inclusive and address racial and gender issues", he reports.
commitments
Prata signed three documents with the ministers of the other four countries. The newest of these is the BRICS Action Plan for Innovation Cooperation, valid from 2017 to 2020. Proposed in 2016 by India to extend multilateral cooperation beyond purely academic objectives, the Science, Technology and Innovation Entrepreneurship Partnership (Stiep , in the acronym in English) is responsible for two main goals in this initial moment.
"The first one is the creation of networks of science parks and business incubators, promoting support for small and medium-sized technology-based companies", the secretary details. "The second goal would be to stimulate the training of talents in an expanded, culturally diverse context, because each country has its own innovation environment, especially in the search for converting ideas into solutions for information and communication technologies [ICTs], materials, water resources , health, energy and resilience to natural disasters."
The five ministries also revised and updated the Work Plan from 2015 to 2018, signed in Moscow, Russia, during the 3rd Ministerial Meeting, in October 2015. The new version of the document establishes an agenda of 17 events until the end of the year. next year. The list provides for the holding of three meetings of BRICS working groups (WGs) in Brazilian cities.
According to Prata, innovation dominated the first Chinese edition of the annual meeting between the scientific departments of the five emerging economies. "Each minister presented and discussed the national policies and strategies adopted to promote growth based on innovation, in order to exchange experiences and outline possibilities for cooperation", he explains. "We made an overview of our public and private investment in research and development [R&D] and explored Brazilian initiatives to support technology-based entrepreneurship, highlighting our efforts through startup programs and Embrapii [Brazilian Research and Industrial Innovation]."
The secretary highlighted China's maturation in science and technology, expressed by high investment in R&D, and the humanitarian concerns of South Africa, the next country to preside over the group. "The South African Minister of Science and Technology, Naledi Pandor, brought this up in the perspective that advances in technological development and innovation must be inclusive and address racial and gender issues", he reports.
commitments
Prata signed three documents with the ministers of the other four countries. The newest of these is the BRICS Action Plan for Innovation Cooperation, valid from 2017 to 2020. Proposed in 2016 by India to extend multilateral cooperation beyond purely academic objectives, the Science, Technology and Innovation Entrepreneurship Partnership (Stiep , in the acronym in English) is responsible for two main goals in this initial moment.
"The first one is the creation of networks of science parks and business incubators, promoting support for small and medium-sized technology-based companies", the secretary details. "The second goal would be to stimulate the training of talents in an expanded, culturally diverse context, because each country has its own innovation environment, especially in the search for converting ideas into solutions for information and communication technologies [ICTs], materials, water resources , health, energy and resilience to natural disasters."
The five ministries also revised and updated the Work Plan from 2015 to 2018, signed in Moscow, Russia, during the 3rd Ministerial Meeting, in October 2015. The new version of the document establishes an agenda of 17 events until the end of the year. next year. The list provides for the holding of three meetings of BRICS working groups (WGs) in Brazilian cities.
Campinas (SP) should host in March 2018 the 2nd Meeting of the GT on Research Infrastructures and Megascience Projects. The National Center for Research in Energy and Materials (CNPEM) organizes the event on behalf of Sirius, under construction by the National Synchrotron Light Laboratory (LNLS). When ready, the scientific infrastructure will be the largest and most complex ever built in the country, planned to occupy the world's leading position among equipment in its class.
In April 2018, the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) held, in Brasília (DF), the 4th Meeting of the Brics Framework Program in Science, Technology and Innovation (BRICS STI), at which selected the projects to be financed by the second coordinated public call to support joint research, scheduled for simultaneous launch this semester by agencies from the five countries.
In Hangzhou, the ministers defined six thematic areas for the public call: prevention and monitoring of natural disasters; water resources and pollution treatment; new and renewable energies and energy efficiency; biotechnology and biomedicine, including human health and neuroscience; materials science, with nanotechnology; and ICTs and high-performance computing.
In August 2016, CNPq launched the first national public call for Brics STI, which represents a multilateral fund formed by development agencies. According to Prata, the program received 320 proposals in 10 thematic areas. "The five ministries selected 26 projects, with the presence of at least three countries each, and eight of them have Brazilian participation", he recalls. In all, US$ 9.4 million should be invested in joint research.
The last BRICS meeting scheduled for 2018 in a Brazilian city, not yet defined, is the 2nd Meeting of the GT on Oceanic and Polar Science and Technology, scheduled for June. In South Africa, without a specific date, the National Center for Monitoring and Alerts on Natural Disasters (Cemaden) organizes the 3rd Meeting of the WG on Risk Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Disasters.
Involvement
Prata also signed, in China, the Declaration of Hangzhou, to reaffirm Brazil's commitment to cooperation and to give continuity to the joint projects started. "This document recognizes the decisions of a large number of events held over the last year," he says.
The secretary praised Brazil's presence at the 2nd BRICS Young Scientists Forum, in Hangzhou, the week before the ministerial meeting, with more than 100 researchers from the five countries. "We were unable to send anyone to the first edition, in 2016, in Bangalore, India, but in China we had six representatives, four of them with the support of MCTIC", he noted. "These are events where participants present the state of the art of their respective areas in their countries. The main objective is to promote exchange, share experiences, establish links and disseminate international cooperation."
Participating in the Young Scientists Forum were researchers Eduardo Lucas Konrad Burin, from the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR), in the area of energy; Gisele Aparecida Amaral Labat, from the University of São Paulo (USP), for materials; Helder Takashi Imoto Nakaya, from USP, for biotechnology; Rodrigo Arantes Reis, from UFPR, for science popularization policies; Carla Kazue Nakao Cavaliero, from the State University of Campinas (Unicamp); and David Tsai, from the Energy and Environment Institute (Iema).
Historic
Since the 1st Ministerial Meeting, in Cape Town, South Africa, in February 2014, each country has led a thematic area: prevention and mitigation of natural disasters, under Brazilian responsibility; water resources and pollution treatment, on behalf of Russia; geospatial technology and its applications for development, from India; renewable energy sources and their efficient use, from China; and astronomy, with South African leadership.
Brasília hosted the 2nd Meeting of Ministers, in March 2015, when the countries signed a memorandum of understanding to institutionalize cooperation within the bloc. The day before, also in the federal capital, the 4th Meeting of High Authorities of Science, Technology and Innovation of the BRICS discussed priorities for the work plan signed in Moscow, Russia, during the 3rd Meeting of Ministers. The Silver Secretary was also at the 4th Ministerial Meeting, in October 2016, in Jaipur, India.
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