“We need scientists and foreigners are welcome” runs the headline to a lengthy article in Spain’s leading daily El Pais, summarising the appeal of a foreign research posting for members of Spain’s cash-strapped scientific community.
The report – prepared by the paper’s widely respected science reporter Alicia Rivera – leads the “Sociedad” section. It comments that the Brazilian state of Sao Paulo has successfully pioneered a model of funding for R&D research that the Spain has tried, yet so far failed, to implement. The article also observes that the proportion of private sector funding in the state’s R&D budget (66%) is also substantially higher than that in Spain (44%). In fact, notes the reporter, Sao Paulo state now invests more than Spain itself in R&D.
The article takes the form of a Q&A between the reporter and Carlos Henrique De Brito Cruz, scientific director of FAPESP, the Sao Paulo Research Institute. In December 2012 a team of FAPESP scientists visited Salamanca and Madrid to raise awareness of the opportunities Brazil provides for visiting foreign researchers.