(26.03.2018) One of the goals of the DFG Office Latin America is to inform Brazilian and German researchers about funding opportunities for joint research. To this end, the DFG was invited to participate in a series of events organised by the Technical University of Munich (TUM), which brought researchers from the Bavarian university together with counterparts in the Federal State of São Paulo. The TUM cooperates with research institutions in São Paulo in 33 different projects. In February and March, with the goal of extending these partnerships, visits and workshops were carried out at three of the region’s leading universities: at the University of São Paulo (USP), the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) and the state university Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP).

“These events are based on an internal funding mechanism called the TUM Global Incentive Fund, an important financing instrument set up by the TUM in order to build up new and consolidate existing cooperation arrangements between strategic partners in the regions where the TUM liaison offices are located. These measures are intended to be seed-funding activities with the goal of allowing us to deepen existing projects and develop new joint research projects. This also requires consulting from the funding organisations, and with the DFG we have a very important partner right on site,” explained Sören Metz, head of the TUM Liaison Office for Latin America in São Paulo.

Against this backdrop, the DFG presentations focussed on the DFG’s bilateral funding opportunities together with FAPESP, the research funding agency of the Federal State of São Paulo. The agencies, which have been funding projects together since 2006, offer joint financing instruments for research activities – resources are available for everything from individual projects to large-scale projects involving research units. Proposals must be written jointly and submitted to both funding agencies for evaluation. Following approval, funding is assigned in accordance with the “matching funds” principle: the DFG finances the German part, and the FAPESP the Brazilian part of the project.

Details of the funding lines and proposal procedures were presented at a strategic workshop on the topic of bioeconomy at the Brazilian Bioethanol Science and Technology Laboratory (CTBE) in Campinas on 9th March. The workshop was organised by the TUM and held by Dr. Kathrin Winkler, Director of the DFG Latin America Office. In addition, DFG programmes and mechanisms relevant to the research area of landscape architecture were presented at a workshop on that topic, organised by Prof. Dr. Stephan Pauleit (TUM) at the architectural faculty of USP on 14th March.

In addition to taking part in the two workshops, the Programme Officer for Brazil at the DFG Office Latin America advised two professors at the TUM: Prof. Dr. Philipp Benz, professor in the Wood Bioprocesses department, and Prof. Dr. Michael Rychlik, chair of Analytical Food Chemistry, received information about the relevant programmes, in order to deepen their scientific cooperation with USP, UNESP and UNICAMO.