Brazilian science and technology

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Brazilian science and technology has achieved in the last decades a significant position in the international arena.

Contents 1 History 1.1 The First Empire 1.2 The Second Empire 2 Organization 3 Funding 4 Timeline 5 Important universities 5.1 Public universities and colleges 5.2 Private universities 6 Research and development institutes 7 Scientific societies 8 Important Brazilian scientists and technologists 9 External links

[edit] History

Brazilian science effectively began only in the first decades of the 19th century, when the Portuguese royal family, headed by D. João VI, arrived in Rio de Janeiro, escaping from the invasion of Napoleon's army in 1807. Until then, Brazil was not much more than a poor colony, without universities, printing presses, libraries, museums, etc., in stark contrast to the former colonies of Spain, which had universities since the 16th century. This was a deliberate policy of the Portuguese colonial power, because they feared that the appearance of educated Brazilian classes would boost nationalism and aspirations toward political independence, as it had happened in the USA and several Latin American former Spanish colonies.

Some feeble attempts of having a Brazilian science establishment were made around 1783, with the expedition of Portuguese naturalist Alexandre Rodrigues, who was sent by Portugal's prime minister, the Marquis of Pombal, to explore and identify Brazilian fauna, flora and geology. His collections, however, were lost to the French, when Napoleon invaded, and were transported to Paris by Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. In 1772, the first learned society, the Sociedade Scientifica, was founded in Rio de Janeiro, but lasted only until 1794. Also, in 1797, the first botanic institute was founded in Salvador, Bahia.

D. João IV gave impetus to all these accoutrements of European civilization to Brazil. In a short period (between 1808 and 1810, the government founded the Royal Naval Academy and the Royal Military Academy (both military schools), the National Library, the Royal Botanical Gardens, the Medico-Chirurgical College of Bahia and the Medico-Chirurgical School of Rio de Janeiro.

[edit] The First Empire

After independence from Portugal, declared by the King's son, D. Pedro I (who became the new country's first Emperor), his policies concerning higher learning, science and technology came to a relative standstill. In the first two decades of the century, science in Brazil was mostly carried out by temporary scientific expeditions by European naturalists, such as Charles Darwin, Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied, Carl von Martius, Johann Baptist von Spix, Alexander Humboldt, Augustin Saint-Hilaire, Baron Grigori Ivanovitch Langsdorff, Friedrich Sellow, Fritz Müller, Hermann von Ihering, Émil Goeldi and others. This science was mostly descriptive of the fantastic Brazilian biodiversity of its flora and fauna, and also its geology, geography and anthropology, and until the creation of the National Museum, the specimens were mostly removed to European institutions. Brazilian expeditions were rare, the most significant one being that of Martim Francisco de Andrada e Silva and José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva, in 1819.

In the educational area, the first law schools were founded in 1827 in Recife and São Paulo, but for decades to come, most Brazilian lawyers still studied at European universities, such as the famous University of Coimbra.

[edit] The Second Empire

Things started to change after 1841, when the eldest son of D. Pedro I, Emperor D. Pedro II came to the throne when he was 15 years old. In the next 50 years, Brazil enjoyed a stable constitutional monarchy. D. Pedro II was an enlightened monarch who favored the arts, literature, science and technology and had extensive international contacts in these areas. The mainstay of Brazilian science and the seat of its first research laboratories was the National Museum Museu Nacional) in Rio de Janeiro, in existence until today. D. Pedro developed a strong personal interest and selected and invited many august European scientific personalities, such as von Ihering and Goeldi, to work in Brazil. He and his ministers, courtesans and senators often attended scientific conferences in the Museum. There, the first laboratory of physiology was founded in 1880, under João Baptista de Lacerda and Louis Couty.

[edit] Organization

Brazil has today a well developed organization of science and technology.

Basic research is largely carried out in public universities and research centers and institutes, and some in private institutions, particularly in non-profit non-governmental organizations. Thanks to governmental regulations and incentives, however, since the 1990s is has been growing in the private universities and companies, as well. Accordingly, more than 90% of funding for basic research comes from governmental sources.

Applied research, technology and engineering is also largely carried out in the university and research centers system, contrary-wise to more developed countries such as the United States, South Korea, Germany, Japan, etc. The reasons for these are many, but the main ones are:

• Few Brazilian private companies are competitive and rich enough for having their own R&D&I, they usually develop products by means of technology transfer from other companies, usually foreign ones;
• The high-technology private sector in Brazil is dominated by large multinational companies, which usually have their R&D&I centers overseas, and, with a few exceptions, do not invest in their Brazilian branches.

However, there is a significant trend reversing this now. Companies such as Motorola, Samsung, Nokia and IBM have established large R&D&I centers in Brazil, starting with IBM, which had established an IBM Research Center in Brazil since the 1970s. One of the incentive factors for this, besides the relatively lower cost and high sophistication and skills of Brazilian technical manpower, has been the so-called Informatics Law, which exempts from certain taxes up to 5% of the gross revenue of high technology manufacturing companies in the fields of telecommunications, computers, digital electronics, etc. The Law has attracted annually more than 1,5 billion dollars of investment in Brazilian R&D&I. Multinational companies have also discovered that some products and technologies designed and developed by Brazilians have a nice competitivity and are appreciated by other countries, such as automobiles, aircraft, software, fiber optics, electric appliances, and so on.

During the 1980s, Brazil pursued a policy of protectionism in computing. Companies and administrations were required to use Brazilian software and hardware, with imports subject to governmental authorization. This encouraged the growth of Brazilian companies but, in spite of their development of products like MSX clones and SOX Unix, the Brazilian consumers of computing were suffering of lesser offer comparing to foreign competitors. The government little by little authorized more and more imports until the barriers were removed. Brazil's IT industry has achieved some remarkable feats, particularly in the area of software. In 2002, Brazil staged the world's first 100% electronic election with over 90% of results in within 2 hours. The system is particularly suited to a country with realtively high illiteracy rates since it flashes up a photograph of the candidate before a vote is confirmed. Citizens could download a desktop module that relayed the votes to their homes in realtime faster than the news networks could get them out. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva recently (2005)launched a "people's computer" to foster digital inclusion, with government finance available and a fixed minimum configuration. Having rejected the Microsoft operating system (Windows XP Starter Edition), it is being shipped with a Brazilian-configured Linux system offering basic functions such as word processing and internet browsing. Plans to make cheap internet access available have not yet come to fruition.

[edit] Funding

Brazilian funding for research, development and innovation comes from six main sources:

1. Government (federal, state and municipal) sources. There are a number of state organizations which were created mostly in the 1950s specifically for directly promoting and funding R&D&I, such as the National Research Council (CNPq), which is now named Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico and the National Agency for Financing Studies and Researches (FINEP), both a part of the Ministry of Science and Technology (MCT). MCT is a relatively novel ministry, having being created in 1990. Before this, CNPq was the only research granting institution at federal level, working directly under the Presidency of Republic. At state level, almost all states have founded their own public foundations for support of R&D&I, following the pioneering (and highly successful) example of São Paulo state, which created the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) in 1962. Usually these foundations are guaranteed by changes in the state constitituions, along the 1980s and 1990s.
2. Indirect funding through the budgets of public and private universities, institutes and centers. Some universities, such as UNICAMP, have their own internal agencies, foundations and funds set apart and managed with the purpose of supporting R&D&I by their faculties and students.
3. Public companies, such as Embrapa (Brazilian Enterprise for Agricultural Research). Their source of revenue are the government itself (via budgetary allocations by ministries and state secretaries) and investment of a part of products and services sold.
4. Industrial, commercial and services private companies, usually for their own R&D&I centers, or via some fiscal benefit (tax exemption laws), such as the Informatics Law.
5. National private and non-for-profit associations and foundations, via statutory mechanisms or donations by private individuals or companies. An example is the Banco do Brasil Foundation
6. Funding by other nations, international organizations and multilateral institutions, such as Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation, Inter-American Development Bank, World Bank, UNESCO, UNDP, World Health Organization, World Wildlife Foundation, Kellog's Foundation, Melinda and Bill Gates Foundation, US National Science Foundation, Volkswagen Foundation, just to name a few of the more important ones in the history of Brazilian science and technology.

[edit] Timeline

• 1916: Creation of the Brazilian Society of Sciences, later Brazilian Academy of Sciences
• 1917: Beginning of the publication of the Anais da Academia Brasileira de Ciências
• 1920: Foundation of the University of Brazil, current Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
• 1923: Creation of the Brazilian Society of Chemistry (SBCh)
• 1923: Foundation of the Radio Society, first radio broadcasting station of Brazil
• 1924: Creation of the Brazilian Association of Education
• 1925: Institution of the Einstein Prize, in reason of his visit to Brazil
• 1930: Creation of the National Institute of Weights and Standards
• 1934: Creation of the University of São Paulo
• 1935: Creation of the University of the Federal District
• 1948: Creation of the Brazilian Society for the Progress of Science (SBPC)
• 1949: Creation of the Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Físicas (CBPF)
• 1951: Creation of the National Research Council (CNPq)
• 1952: Creation of the National Institute for Amazon Research - INPA
• 1953: Foundation of the Brazilian General Command for Aerospace Technology (CTA)

• 1956: Creation of the National Commission of Nuclear Energy (CNEN) http://www.cnen.gov.br
• 1961: Creation of the National Institute for Space Research - INPE
• 1962: Creation of the São Paulo State Foundation for Research Support (FAPESP)
• 1967: Creation of FINEP (National Agency for Financing Research and Projects)

[edit] Important universities

[edit] Public universities and colleges

• USP - Universidade de São Paulo (University of São Paulo)
• UNICAMP - Universidade Estadual de Campinas (State University of Campinas)
• UERJ - Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (State University of Rio de Janeiro)
• UFRJ - Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro)
• ITA - Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica (Aeronautics Technological Institute)
• UNIFESP - Universidade Federal de São Paulo (Federal University of São Paulo)
• UFRGS - Universidade Federal Do Rio Grande do Sul (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul)
• UFMG - Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (Federal University of Minas Gerais)
• UFPR - Universidade Federal do Paraná (Federal University of Paraná)
• UFSCAR - Universidade Federal de São Carlos (Federal University of São Carlos)
• UFF - Universidade Federal Fluminense (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro)
• UFBA - Universidade Federal da Bahia (Federal University of Bahia)
• UFPE - Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (Federal University of Pernambuco)
• UnB - Universidade de Brasília (University of Brasília)
• UFSC - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (Federal University of Santa Catarina)
• UFES - Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo (Federal University of Espírito Santo)

[edit] Private universities

• PUC-PR - Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Paraná (Pontifical Catholic University of Paraná)
• PUC-SP - Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo (Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo)
• PUCCamp - Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Campinas (Pontifical Catholic University of Campinas)
• PUC-RJ - Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro)
• PUC-MG - Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais (Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais)
• PUC-RS - Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul (Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul)
• ULBRA - Universidade Luterana do Brasil (Lutheran University of Brazil)
• Mackenzie University

[edit] Research and development institutes

• Instituto Butantan - São Paulo
• Eldorado Institute - Campinas
• Instituto Oswaldo Cruz - Rio de Janeiro
• Instituto Adolfo Lutz - São Paulo
• Instituto Agronômico de Campinas - Campinas
• Edumed Institute for Education in Medicine and Health - Campinas
• Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi - Belém
• Centro de Pesquisas Renato Archer - Campinas
• Centro de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento em Telecomunicações - Campinas
• INPE - Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais - São José dos Campos
• Brazilian General Command for Aerospace Technology (CTA)

- São José dos Campos

• Instituto de Pesquisas em Energia Nuclear - São Paulo
• Laboratório Nacional de Luz Síncrotron - Campinas
• Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária - Brasília
• Instituto de Pesquisas da Amazônia - Manaus
• Instituto Evandro Chagas - Belém

[edit] Scientific societies

• Brazilian Academy of Sciences
• Brazilian Society for Health Informatics
• Academia Nacional de Medicina
• Sociedade Brasileira para o Progresso da Ciência

[edit] Important Brazilian scientists and technologists

• Carlos Chagas - physician, discoverer of the Chagas disease
• César Lattes - physicist, codiscoverer of the pion (pi-meson)
• Eduardo Krieger - physician and physiologist, president of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences
• Fritz Köberle - physician and pathologist, discoverer of the neural mechanism of the Chagas disease
• Jacob Palis - mathematician
• Jayme Tiomno - physicist
• José Leite Lopes - physicist
• José Reis - virologist
• Marcelo Damy de Souza Santos - physicist
• Mário Schenberg - astrophysicist
• Maurício Rocha e Silva - physician and pharmacologist, codiscoverer of bradykinin
• Miguel Rolando Covian - physician and physiologist, father of Brazilian neurophysiology
• Newton da Costa - mathematician
• Oscar Sala - nuclear physicist
• Oswaldo Cruz - physician and epidemiologist
• Renato Sabbatini - one of the founders of medical informatics in Brazil
• Roberto Salmeron - nuclear physicist
• Sérgio Henrique Ferreira - physician and pharmacologist
• Vital Brazil - physician and immunologist, discoverer of snake antivenoms
• Warwick Estevam Kerr - biologist and geneticist

[edit] External links

• The Museu Nacional and its European employees. Jens Andermann
• The Museu Nacional at Rio de Janeiro. Jens Andermann
• The Brazilian Centre of Physical Research. Nilton de Freitas