São Paulo – Brazil’s National Scientific and Technological Development council (CNPq) is accepting project submissions from researchers interested in conducting research in cooperation with African countries. The initiative is part of the Program for Cooperation in Science, Technology and Innovation with African Countries (ProÁfrica), established over ten years ago following a meeting of science and technology ministers from Brazil and Portuguese-speaking African countries, in a bid to help improve scientific capacity in Africa.
Submissions for the ongoing call for proposals will be accepted until January 22nd, 2015. Total investment will amount to R$ 2 million (US$ 781,000 at current exchange rates), but each project is eligible to receive up to R$ 150,000 (US$ 58,578). According to the CNPq, the primary focus of research should be food security, public health, agriculture and livestock development, social inclusion, climate change and extreme events.
The CNPq is an agency of the Brazilian Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation. ProÁfrica targets mostly the Portuguese-speaking African countries, but projects for cooperation with any country in the continent are eligible, including Arab African countries such as Egypt, Morocco, Libya, Algeria, Mauritania, Sudan, Somalia and Tunisia.
Projects must have a duration of two years and be developed in partnership with research groups based in African countries. The person in charge of each submission is required to e a Brazilian or a foreigner with a permanent visa who resides in Brazil, holds a doctoral degree and has their curriculum registered with the Lattes Platform. The technical team must comprise researchers, students and technicians. Other professionals can be collaborators.
The applicant must have some sort of tie with the organization executing the project, which may be a higher education organization, a public or private non-profit organization, an research institute or centre, or even government-owned science, technology or innovation organizations.
The funds supplied by the CNPq will cover air tickets and lodging for periods lasting up to thirty days to those involved in the project, on missions to the relevant African country or to Brazil. It can also be used for health insurance in trips, rendering of services and acquisition of specific consumption materials, such as filming or laboratory items.
The selection will consider aspects such as technical-scientific merit and quality of the proposal, relevance and scope for the countries at hand, importance of the subject matter within the national and international scenarios, potential benefits arising from the cooperation, training and experience of the coordinator, physical infrastructure and ability of partner organizations to provide support, adequate budge, and others. The results will be announced beginning on May 2015.
According to information released by the CNPq, from 2005 to 2010, five calls for proposals were made, and 190 projects were funded. Total investment was R$ 9.5 million (US$ 3.7 million).
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
