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Experience this amazingly diverse country by taking part in our fully-funded internship, research and teaching opportunities at an array of organizations throughout Brazil. We work closely with MIT faculty and students to tailor engagements that foster relationship building and tackling of complex challenges.

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The program's main goal is to maintain and strengthen the ties developed between MIT and Brazil through existing and new outbound programs (MIT to Brazil), and to support other MIT departments, labs and centers in fosterering ties with Brazil (outbound/ inbound).

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Through the MISTI program, MIT-Brazil matches MIT undergraduate and graduate students with projects in Brazil as part of the MIT Global Classroom , MIT Global Teaching Labs , and a variety of internship opportunities —both in industry and in university research labs. Spanning from areas as diverse as biotechnology and civil engineering to artificial intelligence and management, MIT students experience one-of-a-kind opportunities to expand their horizons by experiencing Brazilian culture while closely collaborating with supervisors, colleagues and students on a socially, scientifically, economically and/ or technologically relevant project. 

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MIT-Brazil works with an ever growing network of host organizations across all sectors. If the MIT student is committed to going to Brazil and wants to study the language, we  commit to finding and securing opportunities outside of our existing network. Internships typically last from 10-12 weeks during the summer, though longer placements can also be arranged. Key sectors include: computer science and artificial intelligence, biotech, pharma, life sciences, fintech and financial services, materials science and engineering, design, architecture, and sustainability. 

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The language requirement can be waived, depending on the placement with some Brazilian hosts/ internship opportunities that require a specific background. Talk to the MIT-Brazil director.

Graduate students : Language requirement waived. Placement will depend on available internships and funding opportunities.

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Learn through teaching. GTL challenges MIT students to synthesize and present what they know, work in a team, and communicate with peers of a different cultural background, all while sharing MIT's unique approach to science and engineering education with high school students around the world. GTLs are often thematic and offered in several country options per IAP.

GTLs in Brazil mostly take place during Brazil's summer (MIT's IAP), while schools are not in session. Brazil Teaching Labs often thematic and designed as week-long workshops. Some workshops may be run during June-August. 

We won't have GTL in Brazil during IAP 2025. 

We may have spots for GTLs during Summer 2025 for students who commit to Summer internships. We are looking for MIT students who want to share their love for learning with Brazilian low-income high schoolers. Past workshops are:

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- "Build-a-thon of a Rover" (one three week-long session) in Brazil's semi-arid region. *This will take place during Summer 2024*

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There will be no GTL in Brazil January 2025.

Minimum GPA of 4.0 and willing to fully commit to a challenging teaching project.

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- Able to lead and manage groups of 10-15 students, as well as guide and mentor individually;

- Adaptable (you will be part of a diverse team and will work and live in a new culture);

- Interested in participating in MIT-Brazil GTL for 2 consecutive years (a commitment is highly valued)

- Experienced in teaching beginner-level English speakers (highly valued for select placements).

NO GTL IN BRAZIL IAP 2025. 

We will require intermediate knowledge of Portuguese, since the MIT students will need to work with Brazilian high schoolers who are not proficient. ( Check out Portuguese Language taught at MIT )

If you are Brazilian and would like to be part of a GTL team, please email  mit-brazil [at] mit.edu (mit-brazil[at]mit[dot]edu)

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A new seed fund is launched Fall 2023, in partnership with Amazonia 2030, to support early-stage collaboration between Brazil and MIT. Joint teams from MIT and Brazilian universities, research institutes, NGOs and other entities are now invited to submit their proposals focusing on relevant aspects of the  Brazilian Amazonian region , and its cities, environment, culture, or communities. For more information https://misti.mit.edu/global-seed-fund-brazil

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Point of View: Reshaping the research landscape in Brazil

• Jéssica Mendes
• Flávia Vischi Winck
• Luiz de Queiroz College of Agriculture (ESALQ), University of São Paulo, Brazil ;
• Center of Nuclear Energy in Agriculture (CENA), University of São Paulo, Brazil ;
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• Gustavo Schiavone Crestana
• Renato Augusto Corrêa dos Santos
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Brazil would benefit from a long-term strategy for science and innovation that improves the standing of both science and scientists in the country.

The past few years have been tough for science in Brazil. Jair Bolsonaro, who was president from 2019–2022, and his government were viewed by most scientists as anti-science. For example, the Bolsonaro administration has consistently rejected the scientific consensus on climate change and did not support vaccination at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The spread of misinformation about scientific topics was exacerbated by the popularity of social media ( Diele-Viegas et al., 2021 ). The federal budget for science and education has also fallen over the past decade, from around 17% of the total budget in 2013 to about 8% in 2020 ( OECD, 2021 ). Graduate students and early-career researchers were hit particularly hard by these cuts. Indeed, in the last month of Bolsonaro’s tenure, some students were not able to pay their rent or buy food ( CAPES, 2022 ).

The National Innovation System (NIS) in Brazil consists of a range of public and private institutions, including universities, research institutes, industry associations, and government agencies ( Figure 1 ; Mazzucato and Penna, 2016 ). These institutions work together to support research and development, technology transfer, and the commercialization of new products and services. The National Innovation System is crucial for researchers because it supports research projects and funds scholarships at universities and research institutes across Brazil. However, both these areas were impacted by the budget cuts of the past decade.

Reforming science and innovation in Brazil.

The National Innovation System (NIS) in Brazil consists of a range of public and private institutions (including universities, research institutes, industry associations, and government agencies) that work together to support research and development, technology transfer, and the commercialization of new products and services. The four elements of the system are: education and research; production and innovation; finance and funding; and government (which is responsible for regulation and policy). The six propositions for reforming the system are described in the main text.

Adapted from Mazzucato and Penna, 2016 .

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (also known as Lula), who was President between 2003 and 2010, defeated Bolsonaro in the presidential election last October and took over in January of this year. During his previous time as President, Lula implemented a number of policies that supported science and education in Brazil. This time around his government has announced plans to restructure the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation and the agencies that fund science, such as the CNPq (short for the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development) and the CAPES Foundation (Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education).

The new administration has also raised pay for researchers on federal scholarships and announced that it plans to increase the number of scholarships available. This is clearly good news, but there are still reasons to be worried about the future of science in Brazil. One overarching problem is the lack of a long-term strategy for scientific research and innovation, including a target for investments in science and education as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP). In this article we summarize six specific problems and challenges confronting research and innovation in Brazil, and make recommendations on how to address them.

First, low salaries, poor working conditions and a lack of benefits are driving many young researchers out of science and/or out of Brazil. There is an urgent need to increase salaries and improve working conditions and benefits, especially for researchers at the start of their careers. Ideally, being a scientific researcher at any level or stage would be officially recognized by the government as a profession – similar to engineers, physicians and lawyers – which would help scientific researchers have rights such as vacation, retirement plans and pensions, complementary health care, and paid maternity and paternity leave.

The second challenge is to demonstrate to the Brazilian population that investing in science and innovation will lead to discoveries and new knowledge that will improve people’s lives and address many of the challenges facing society today. One way to do this would be to use an approach called the Social Return of Investment (SROI) that is employed by various non-profit organizations and government agencies to assess the social, environmental and economic impacts of projects they fund. For example, a study that looked at the impact of scholarships, research projects and infrastructure funded by the São Paulo Research Foundation in the fields of agronomy and agriculture showed that a return of R$ 27 was generated for every R$ 1 invested in the state of São Paulo ( De Araújo and Nicolella, 2016 ). We suggest that similar studies be undertaken to assess the impact of the money spent on science by state and federal agencies in Brazil.

The third challenge is to ensure that science and innovation has a higher profile in the Brazilian parliament and in government departments. For this to happen, we need to encourage the development of future generations of leaders who are more receptive to dialogue and open to the possibilities that science offers. The proposal to set up a Parliamentary Front for Science, Technology, Research, and Innovation in the Chamber of Deputies (the lower house of the National Congress of Brazil) is an encouraging step in the right direction: this body would, among other things, seek to modernize the National Innovation System and to encourage research and innovation in areas that are of strategic importance to the country. There might also be a role for non-profit organizations such as RenovaBr, a non-profit that aims to train political leaders in Brazil, and has a good record of promoting the use of science and evidence in policy making.

The fourth challenge involves various organizational and legal reforms. These should include enhancing institutional autonomy (and reducing bureaucracy) and making it easier for public and private organizations to collaborate. With the exception of agroindustry ( Cassiolato, 2007 ), there have been relatively few collaborations between public bodies (such as universities and research institutes) and private companies that have resulted in impactful technological development in Brazil ( Cassiolato, 2015 ). There is also a need for the various institutions in the National Innovation System to take account of a new legal framework called the MLCTI in their programs, projects and calls for proposals. The MLCTI is a set of laws, regulations and guidelines that establish the legal framework for the development of scientific research, technology, and innovation in Brazil. It has brought about several important changes, such as greater flexibility in the rules for hiring researchers, the simplification of processes for importing equipment and supplies for research, and the creation of tax incentives for companies investing in research, development and innovation. State laws about innovation will also need to be updated to take account of MLCTI.

The fifth challenge is to facilitate meaningful engagement between research institutions and society in order to combat the current wave of scientific denialism in Brazil. A number of organizations are already doing good work in this area – notably the Institut Questão de Ciência (IQC) and the Bori Agency – but there is a need to do more. One option would be to create a national project for science dissemination, and to increase the number of teaching and research positions related to these areas at universities and research institutes.

The challenges discussed so far are all interconnected, which makes clear the need for a long-term strategy for science and innovation in Brazil. Agriculture has been a success story in Brazil in recent decades ( Correa and Schmidt, 2014 ), and the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) has been one of the driving forces behind this. A working group has been set up to review the national agricultural research system, of which Embrapa is a crucial part, and to plan for the future in response to both local and global challenges and opportunities. A similar approach needs to be taken with the National Innovation System.

The challenges faced by science in Brazil over the past few years have been significant. The anti-science stance of the previous administration, coupled with budget cuts and a lack of support for research and education, has had a detrimental impact on the scientific community, particularly graduate students and early-career researchers. However, the recent change of government and the implementation of new policies offer a glimmer of hope for the future. The restructuring of institutions and increased funding for research and scholarships, in particular, demonstrate a commitment to prioritize science and innovation. Nonetheless, as we have discussed here, there are still obstacles to overcome and we need to act now if we want to ensure a prosperous future for science in Brazil.

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• Cassiolato JE
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• De Araújo PFC
• Nicolella AC
• Diele-Viegas LM
• Mazzucato M

Author details

Gustavo Schiavone Crestana is at the Luiz de Queiroz College of Agriculture (ESALQ), University of São Paulo, Piracicaba, Brazil

Contribution

For correspondence, competing interests.

Jéssica Mendes is at the Luiz de Queiroz College of Agriculture (ESALQ), University of São Paulo, Piracicaba, Brazil

Renato Augusto Corrêa dos Santos is an eLife Community Ambassador and is at the Center of Nuclear Energy in Agriculture (CENA), University of São Paulo, Piracicaba, Brazil

Flávia Vischi Winck is at the Center of Nuclear Energy in Agriculture (CENA), University of São Paulo, Piracicaba, Brazil

Acknowledgements

We thank scientists, politicians, journalists, entrepreneurs, scientific societies and student associations – including the Brazilian National Association of Postgraduates (ANPG), represented by Vinicius Soares – for useful discussions.

Publication history

• Received: June 27, 2023
• Accepted: June 28, 2023
• Version of Record published : July 5, 2023

© 2023, Crestana et al.

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Engineering and development in Brazil, challenges and prospects: a new perspective on the topic

Innovation & Management Review

ISSN : 2515-8961

Article publication date: 12 April 2018

Issue publication date: 6 June 2018

Engineering is a powerful instrument for promoting the social and economic development of nations. Its enhancement is a strategic element to accelerate Brazil’s progress. This paper aims to present a new perspective on the topic of “Engineering and Development in Brazil, Challenges and Prospects” ( Guimarães et al. , 2007 ). Its goal is to discuss the need for restructuring the Brazilian system for research, development and innovation (RD&I) and the training of human resources in engineering in the country.

Design/methodology/approach

This article is designed to discuss the relations between the performance of the industrial sector and the maturation of engineering in Brazil by looking at the national scientific production in the area in comparison to the world production and to countries (South Korea and The Netherlands). Finally, in terms of training human resources, the Brazilian study abroad program Science without Borders program is discussed in the article as an important tool for the qualification of engineering students in Brazil.

A few of the main findings in this research are as follows: despite being among the top 20 countries in scientific production in Engineering, Brazil still lacks turning this scientific-technological knowledge into products and patents; Brazilian universities and research institutes must build interorganizational collaborations with the industrial sector to increase innovation in the field of engineering; The distribution of the investment in RD&I in engineering must be strategically distributed among its various fields, taking into account national strategies and the technological interrelations between them. The article concludes that engineering is a powerful instrument for promoting a country’s social development while offering indications about Brazilian strategic orientation in the development of engineering.

Originality/value

Despite already being well known that engineering is a powerful instrument for promoting a country’s social development, this article innovates by associating academic scientific production in engineering to other variables related to economic development, such as gross domestic product, human development index, industrial and manufactured production and the filing of patents. It comes at an important moment when the Brazilian Government is discussing new strategies to increase social and economic development in the country while controlling for the investment in RD&I. Therefore, it is the right moment to discuss national policies in science, technology and innovation, especially in the area of engineering.

• Engineering
• Socioeconomic development
• Productive systems
• Industrial development

Grochocki, L. , Guimarães, J. , Prata, A. and Oliveira, J. (2018), "Engineering and development in Brazil, challenges and prospects: a new perspective on the topic", Innovation & Management Review , Vol. 15 No. 1, pp. 41-57. https://doi.org/10.1108/INMR-02-2018-003

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2018, Luís Grochocki, Jorge Guimarães, Alvaro Prata and João Oliveira.

Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

1. Introduction

Since 2005, Brazil has been ranked among the ten largest economies in the world, currently occupying eighth place in terms of global gross domestic product (GDP) ( Global R&D Funding Forecast, 2017 ). Despite the recognized, cyclical pace of the Brazilian economy in recent decades, there has been a certain period of monetary stabilization and an adoption of social public policies aimed at income redistribution. Thus, the fall in the unemployment rate, combined with a favorable external environment and a strengthened internal market, guaranteed a cycle of economic growth and social inclusion during this period (Brazil, 2012). However, recent studies demonstrate that the country’s productivity did not follow the economic growth of this period, particularly with regard to the industry. Unlike events in the previous decade, between 2001 and 2009, there was a greater disparity in relation to GDP per capita versus growth in productivity. In other words, Brazilian GDP per capita evolved significantly in the above-mentioned decade, while productivity remained relatively stable. This gap emerged mainly because of the strong correlation between GDP growth and the increase in the workforce and purchasing power, though with less significant contributions from productivity ( De Negri and Cavalcante, 2013 ). A study by the Boston Consulting Group concluded that over the past decade, the gain in productivity for GDP growth in Brazil was only 26 per cent, while the remaining 74 per cent was attributed to the fall in unemployment – a rather different scenario from that of China and India, where contributions from productivity have reached 93 and 82 per cent, respectively. Finally, it is important to highlight that the modest growth in Brazilian productivity occurred, chiefly, in the extractive industry and in farming and livestock, sectors that concern directly natural resources and entail relatively low added value ( Ukon et al. , 2013 ). Given that the unemployment rate fell considerably in this most positive, above-mentioned period for the Brazilian economy, it is impossible to rely only on the significant increase in the economically active population to increase GDP. For Brazil to resume the virtuous cycle of economic growth and social development, there needs to be an upturn in productivity rates and innovation capacity, particularly through the qualification of the workforce[ 1 ] and integration between the research and industrial sectors.

At present, the world is intensely experiencing the knowledge economy in which the main production inputs are no longer physical assets but rather intellectual work. Hence, the effort to create new products and new technologies has acquired a growing value in the contemporary world. The current challenge, even for developed countries, is therefore to master cutting-edge technology in the industrial sectors, generating jobs of a higher intellectual level. Generally, these jobs offer greater social benefits, on account of the chance to create new business opportunities, as well as the increased wealth generated and the resulting growth in GDP per capita and, above all, the inclusion of young people in demanding processes of creative innovation. Nevertheless, technological innovations, the development of national infrastructure and the emergence and establishment of small- and medium-sized industries and businesses require the presence of contingents of well-qualified engineers. They should be the designers, technical managers and operators, constituting the largest portion of the industrial sector’s skilled workforce. A clear demonstration is the progress shown in recent decades by several previously technologically emerging countries – such as India, Spain, China, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore – of which the development basis has been the emphasis on industrial processes requiring qualified groups of engineers. Importantly, all these countries are currently direct competitors of Brazil, and there is a comparative disadvantage in relation to them concerning the exportation of manufactured products. Thus, it is concluded that engineering is a powerful instrument for promoting a country’s social development. In the case of Brazil, which possesses innumerable comparative advantages and immense natural richness, at the present stage of development, there is clearly a great need for a body of well-trained engineers, with consolidated skills and willing to be innovators and entrepreneurs.

2. Research and development in universities and research centers in Brazil

A positive aspect of this challenge concerns the academic field. In this regard, Brazil has evidently achieved an extraordinary performance over the past two decades and since 2008 has occupied 13th place for scientific production at the global level, overtaking countries with a far greater tradition in research and training of human resources, such as The Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, Belgium, Denmark and Israel. Endeavoring to occupy the tenth position in the global science rankings by 2020, Brazil is seeking to place itself among the top ten countries with the greatest potential to produce new knowledge, which would be more in line with its position in the global GDP rankings and with the correlation observed in the case of more developed countries in comparing GDP vs scientific production. In the past 30 years, Brazil has enhanced significantly its investment in science, technology and innovation (ST&I)[ 2 ], investing 1.2 per cent of GDP in 2013. Nevertheless, in international comparisons, Brazil is still behind many countries regarding the number of scientists and engineers, the percentage of GDP investment in ST&I and, consequently, in the human development index (HDI), as shown in Table I . In this context, it seems important to note that there is apparently a certain confluence between a proportion of at least 1.6 per cent of GDP in R&D and the existence of a minimum level of around 3,000 scientists and engineers per 1 million inhabitants in allowing a country to occupy a more prominent position in terms of the social and economic development of nations.

In fact, the significant results of Brazilian science come from the fact that the country’s outstanding scientific development occurs at universities, particularly on graduate courses, which generate thousands of dissertations and theses per year (in 2015, there were around 55,000 master’s dissertations and 18,000 PhD theses), certainly adding to Brazil’s internationally acknowledged scientific production[ 3 ].

Although Brazil has attained these results in science, the country’s performance is poor with regard to the registration of patents that could entail applied industrial technology. For various reasons, including the inexperience of the university system, the interaction between universities and companies has lagged behind and is still evolving slowly in Brazil. Hence, and also because of a lack of effective industrial demand, the university community has directed research to emphasize on academic production, that is, in a direction out of tune with that experienced by the industrial community in developed countries.

Perhaps for the same reasons, there is little interaction between research groups and centers in collaboration and the sharing across networks of knowledge generated, to be applied at companies. In addition, basic industrial technology developed in Brazil often fails to result in productivity gains because of the existing disparities disparity between the companies’ objectives and those of research centers. Ultimately, national companies invest little in R&D, and the number of scientists and researchers that operate in the core activities of national companies is still low compared with Germany, Canada, China, South Korea, the USA, France, Japan and Russia, countries with swifter technological development processes ( Figure 1 ).

With respect to public Brazilian research institutes, it is also clear that general planning does not reflect a priority to operate in R&D at the frontiers of knowledge linked to business demands. The American model needs to be highlighted, where national laboratories receive from the respective supervising departments and research development missions that are already in line with companies, resulting in technological products that are of national interest and very often procured by the government itself. This culture of integrated research programs is almost non-existent in Brazil. At best, fields of activity are prioritized, which normally results in a body of quality knowledge, though it is disjointed and unaligned with companies.

the development of technology for oil extraction in deep waters, with intense participation from the Alberto Luiz Coimbra Institute for Graduate Studies and Research in Engineering;

the aeronautics industry being associated with the CTA/ITA complex (Center of Advanced Technology/Technological Institute of Aeronautics);

the wide support for developing engineering through the REENG/RECOPE program (Cooperative Research Networks/Re-engineering of Engineering Teaching);

the development of methods and tools that have made Brazilian banking automation one of the best in the world and the joint research projects between Brazilian and German groups in manufacturing engineering via the Bragecrim program (Brazil Germany Collaborative Research Initiative on Manufacturing Technology), with diverse impacts in industry.

Despite the structural weaknesses, the production of patents filed by resident institutions increased in Brazil between 1999 and 2013, allowing the country to occupy its current 25th place globally in terms of patents filed. However, a significant proportion of the patents filed originate from universities and research centers. For instance, among the ten main institutions that filed patents in Brazil in 2015, three were universities, with UFMG and UNESP occupying the fifth and sixth places, respectively, on a level footing with companies such as Braskem and Petrobrás ( Table II ).

In this regard, it is worth mentioning the excellent study by Narim et al. (1997) , demonstrating that in more technologically competitive countries (USA, Japan, Germany, Canada and others), the patents registered are largely ratified on account of the scientific knowledge generated in the country. In the case of the USA, 73 per cent of industrial patents are scientifically substantiated by the theoretical and technical content obtained from the scientific publications produced by the academic sector based on the studies financed through public funds from American development agencies ( Narim et al. , 1997 ). In the case of Brazil, using a comparative approach, it has been demonstrated ( De Meis et al. , 2007 ) that there is an intimate and positive correlation between scientific production and the number of patents registered, both in Brazil and abroad. In South Korea’s case, this indicator is correlated with the volume of funds invested in RD&I by companies. Thus, as Brazil has such a recent ST&I system, along with a high scientific level, stimulus still needs to be provided to transform accumulated knowledge (ST&I) into productive activity (RD&I), a clear appeal to the inherently innovative spirit that typifies a modern and competitive industrial sector.

Given what has been discussed so far, efforts to enhance the competitiveness of Brazilian companies must be conceived in a specific manner. Such efforts involve taking full advantage of the ST&I potential in place at Brazilian universities and research centers. They must take account of the quest to master innovating technologies and the creation of a developed business environment, composed of large manufacturing companies, surrounded by small high-tech companies, capable of creating new products and selling services that add great value. A healthy relationship with academic institutions must include the provision of quality education for the professionals required for the enterprises and the development of cutting-edge technology. Engineering certainly plays a crucial role in this context; its consolidation and structuring must observe the principles that enhance business development, which include major integration with the business sector and consistent distribution among the fields of operation.

3. RD&I in companies in Brazil

It is well known that Brazil carries out little R&D in the industrial sector, compared with more developed countries. The understanding many businessmen have of what RD&I represents is closely linked to foreign technological dependence. A survey conducted by the National Confederation of Industry (NCI) shows that in national companies, investment in RD&I amounts to non-specific research activities such as staff training, spending on products and purchasing machines. Importantly, the concept of human resources that guided the responses of the businessmen in the NCI survey is restricted to the training of machine operators and sales staff, therefore falling short of what is discussed in this article.

A study by the Conference Board demonstrated that in 2013, the mean productivity of employees at Brazilian companies was US$10.8/h of work, while Chile (US$20.8), Mexico (US$16.8) and Argentina (US$13.9) had far higher means. Furthermore, in recent years, the growth in the Brazilian productivity rate was only 0.8 per cent, while China hit 7.1 per cent[ 4 ]. For this rate to improve, investment in education, technology and innovation will be necessary.

Researchers who operate in Brazil in core activities linked to R&D are mainly at universities and research institutes, as illustrated in Figure 1 . This scenario contrasts with that of other countries, where most researchers are concentrated in industries. In absolute terms, the number of scientists and engineers operating at Brazilian universities is greater those operating in South Korea; hence, what Brazil lacks is a planning policy and system at institutions to include collaboration between universities and companies in research, with the resulting establishment of researchers in the industrial sector. Two basic needs can be identified in the sector of qualified human resources for R&D in Brazil. The first is the development of skills to perform at RD&I centers in industries, and the second is the training of professionals to operate in the growing business system. For the first demand, greater integration between companies and universities is needed, and the lynchpin is the development of integrated projects that serve the interests of both sectors. Collaboration with the business sector means that the academic sectors understand business demands regarding the generation of knowledge. A successful example of such cooperation is provided by Powell et al. (2005) when analyzing interorganizational cooperation in the life sciences in the USA. According to the authors, universities played a major role in building the new field of biotechnology, allowing companies to convert basic science to new products. Building similar collaborations would also be very important in engineering and must be sought by Brazilian universities and research institutions. For the second demand, it is necessary to have a balanced distribution of training across the various fields in national engineering.

To meet the need to improve the planning of institutions in areas that have more potential for interaction with companies, in 2013, the then Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation signed a contract with EMBRAPII – Brazilian Industrial Research and Innovation Enterprise. The contract, of which the Ministry of Education is also a supporter, provides non-refundable financial resources for a system of selected institutions (EMBRAPII Units) to carry out clear research programs, with well-defined areas of expertise, integrated with companies. The EMBRAPII system has yielded good results, and in just over two years, it has accredited 34 research groups operating in RD&I and managed to make available over R$330m across 240 projects stemming from companies’ demands.

4. The challenge for small- and medium-sized companies

The demands of the manufacturing and equipment industries (agriculture, automobile, electronics, etc.) highlight the critical position of current industrial development. There is a clear, growing need for greater participation and performance from small- and medium-sized companies. Nonetheless, there is a lack of scientific-technological knowledge, which, in turn, is intimately linked to the low supply of well-trained engineers in the country.

5. Demands for a system of graduate studies and research in engineering

the adoption of a research management model that follows and meets the business demands of national engineering; and

the establishment of a balance between the different fields of engineering so that the development of one supports the development of others.

One example of a management model that brings academia closer to the industrial sector is outlined in Figure 2 . The lower part of the figure features the basic elements for a company to be competitive: strategy, product development, logistics and production management and manufacturing technology. All these elements must be supported by computerized systems and tools. The upper part of the figure outlines the research and graduate studies fields that must be developed in academia to support and maintain the business sector. This development must occur based on business demands. For their part, the respective research and graduate studies fields still need to be integrated and catered for by the industrial sector. The listed fields take account of the demands of companies that operate in different segments and can vary depending on the type of company and market sector.

The second element to consider in stimulating research is higher graduate qualifications in engineering and establishing a balance between the different concentrations within engineering. For instance, the mechanics industry depends on the electronics industry for the development of its control and monitoring systems, and thus, it is impossible to have a strong and competitive mechanical industry sector without strong electronic engineering. Such a distribution in the competence profile and quantity of human and research resources in the different engineering fields can be established based on a global reference. This distribution is outlined and discussed below. Brazil needs to observe this standard to plan its engineering development strategy. Figure 3 displays the model of Figure 2 with an expectation of participation from engineers and other sister areas. Notably, there is a great demand for high-level planning activities that must be developed by production engineers in various sectors. The role of these professionals needs to be studied thoroughly so as to offer students training in the essential modern tools for successful business development.

6. Economic growth and the development of engineering in Brazil and the world

Few countries are protagonists of global scientific production in engineering in indexed journals. Approximately 70 per cent of what is published worldwide in engineering can be attributed to ten countries: China (including Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan), the USA, the UK, South Korea, Japan, France, Germany, India and Iran. They are also leaders in global technological production. From this group, it is worth highlighting China, India, Canada and South Korea, competitors for Brazil in several commercial sectors. Brazil has gone down in the engineering rankings and currently occupies 18th place, accounting for around 1.33 per cent of global scientific production (around 8,390 articles between 2010 and 2014). The charts in Figure 4 outline global participation in engineering in the main countries. One point to note is that Brazil is the only Latin American country to feature among the 20 most competitive countries in engineering, having been recognized for its strong engineering.

Furthermore, there is a direct correlation between engineering production and the economic indicators of each country, as illustrated in Table III . An analysis of this table backs the thesis outlined in this article that stress the importance of engineering to a country’s development. It is apparent that with the exception of Brazil and Mexico, the 15 largest economies in the world are those that publish the most in engineering. Another curious element is the relationship between scientific production in engineering and the GDP of emerging Asian countries such as South Korea, Singapore and Malaysia. The ranking of these countries as producers of engineering knowledge is higher than for their respective GDPs. Notably Singapore, the 19th most productive country, but 36th in terms of GDP. The concern for engineering in these countries explains and predicts their economic growth[ 5 ].

In addition, when analyzing industrial production and manufactured products (fourth and fifth columns of Table III ) respectively, the correlation with scientific production in engineering appears to be even stronger. An aspect to be highlighted is that almost 44 per cent of China’s GDP and 40 per cent of Malaysia’s GDP emanates from the industrial sector, representing the highest percentages among the countries analyzed[ 6 ].

The sixth column of the table outlines the countries’ electrical energy consumption. Of the 26 countries that produce the most articles in engineering, 17 are among those that consume the most electrical energy.

Finally, the last column outlines the number of international filings of patents per country. It is worth highlighting the excellent performance of The Netherlands with regard to this criterion, with a significantly higher patent ranking than for the other indicators. Other outstanding nations include Switzerland (8th), Sweden (10th), Finland (13th), Israel (15th), Denmark (18th), Austria (19th) and Belgium (21st), countries that demonstrate more positive results in generating patents compared with others that are better qualified in the production of engineering knowledge, along with industrial and manufacturing production. From this table, it is clear that smaller Asian countries (South Korea, Singapore and Malaysia) are outliers in terms of qualified production in engineering, relative to their other economic indicators. On the other hand, the engineering production of Brazil and Mexico is inferior compared to the potential that their economic indicators display.

The following discussion explores the distribution of publications in engineering in the world and Brazil by field of knowledge. As presented in Figure 5 , the three largest fields (materials, computing and electronics) correspond to the engineering branches reflecting the most significant scientific production in Brazil (48.9 per cent) and the world (50.9 per cent), with the field of materials leading production both in Brazil (23.1 per cent) and the world (24.7 per cent). Such numbers verify information already available from other indicators, namely, that although it is in the field of materials that Brazil publishes the most, the country needs to improve its global participation in industry. This represents an inversion in relation to the seven countries mentioned above, in which technological performance (filing of patents) is greater than academic production.

With respect to publications, Brazilian chemical engineering, along with environmental/energy engineering, is well placed, while the field of nanoscience and nanotechnology is lagging behind compared with the percentages observed at the global level.

Moreover, it is interesting to compare Brazilian production in various fields of engineering with production in said fields in South Korea and The Netherlands. This information is displayed in Figure 6 . Similar to Brazil, in South Korea, the most productive field of engineering is materials, yet the differences are five times greater, in favor of the Asian country. Likewise, in the chemical and electronics fields, there is a threefold difference relative to Brazilian production. However, the greatest difference with regard to publications is in the field of nanoscience and nanotechnology, where South Korea produces eight times as much. The profile for participation in the production of new scientific knowledge in engineering fields in South Korea is unique to countries with high rates of industrial development, where the transformation industry and high technology sector demand advanced engineering. Compared with The Netherlands, Brazilian production is more balanced. Nevertheless, The Netherlands stands out, above all, in the fields of computing and aerospace, while Brazil enjoys an advantage in materials, chemicals, metals and mining, geology and petroleum. Thus, it may be beneficial to reflect on the model The Netherlands adopted to transform its production into an enhanced generation of patents relative to countries with similar engineering production, such as Brazil.

7. The Science without Borders program

Launched on July 26, 2011, the Science without Borders program became a strategic instrument for the Brazilian Government to invest in the qualified training of professionals from engineering and the other technological fields. The program sought the mobility of up to 101,000 students and researchers at foreign higher education institutions and laboratories with excellent reputations in teaching and research. In addition, the program aimed to attract young people and renowned researchers for them to develop research projects along with scientific and technological groups in Brazil. Figure 7 displays the distribution of scholarship holders across the fields of knowledge. Managed and implemented by Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) and National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), the program was financed chiefly by public funds (75,000 scholarships). However, owing to its strategic character for the country’s development, it triggered interest from the private sector. Hence, Brazilian companies (Petrobrás, Vale and Eletrobrás), foreign companies (Boeing, Shell, BG Group, Statoil, Petrogal) and directly concerned groups (FEBRABAN) offered to co-finance 26,000 additional scholarships, amounting to the target of 101,000.

With a focus on the academic qualification of engineers and the development of a researcher profile geared toward the demands of the private sector, the program brought innovation to the related fields involved. It complemented the activities of scholarship holders through the completion of professional internships abroad, impacting significantly their training. Seeking this objective, several cooperation agreements were signed between the funding agencies (CAPES and CNPq) and the partner companies on the program, which offered internship places at their head offices and subsidiaries across different countries. Within the participating companies, some are particularly noteworthy, including Boeing, Amgen, NASA, Hyunday, Samsung, Shell, Praxair, General Motors, Mitsui, Huawei and innumerable others. By offering internships abroad, companies have found within the Science without Borders program an opportunity to identify, during university, young, talented, highly-qualified individuals who can be harnessed as manpower at their subsidiaries upon returning to Brazil. Special attention should be paid to the 600 engineers sent on the professional master’s programs (hands-on) at some of the best American institutions. As Figure 7 demonstrates, up until December 2014, the agencies met the program target and granted 101,446 scholarships, benefitting 55,304 students in engineering and related fields, which constitutes over 50 per cent of the entire program. Importantly, prior to Science without Borders being launched, CAPES was already showing signs of significant increases in the number of study-abroad scholarships granted to engineering students: from approximately 100 in 1998 to 1,000 in 2011 and 10,000 in 2013.

This contingent of benefitting scholarship holders is returning to Brazil with a distinguished profile. They possess technical knowledge of some of the best technologies available in their fields of practice, as well as a vision of how to apply theoretical study to address the global challenges currently being faced. With similar characteristics to the desired engineer profile, described by Richard K. Miller, President of the “Olin College of Engineering”, one of the best engineering schools in the USA:

The role of the engineer we envision is that of “systems architect” of complex technical, social, economic, and political systems capable of addressing the global challenges we now face. Such engineers must be creative in conceiving, implementing, and managing the technologies that will shape our future. They must not only be applied scientists who are capable of predicting, creating, and developing the new science and technologies, but also organizational leaders and project managers capable of explaining complex socio-technical issues directly to the public, establishing trust through effective leadership, planning and implementation of integrated projects that deliver desired outcomes—not just products or devices—and do this on time and on budget. (…)

The educational implications of producing such engineers are substantial. Not only must these engineers continue to possess exceptional proficiency in STEM subjects, but they must also have substantial new abilities. In particular, they must have a broad awareness of complex global issues, a passion or strong motivation to make a positive difference in the world in the largest sense, and a “can-do” attitude that is characteristic of the best “social entrepreneurs” and political or organizational leaders. These new attitudes, behaviors, and motivations are essential to the preparation of the engineers needed for the Grand Challenges ( Miller, 2010 ).

The vision of Richard Miller has been implemented in practice both at Olin College in Massachusetts and at Insper in Brazil. Students at these institutions seek to define engineering issues based on real and specific needs, taking into account the project behind a product, its manufacturing and the development of the company/business for its commercial operation. All the stages of learning are replete with practical activities, where students unravel the complexities of the technology before delving deeper into the supporting theories. Brazil faces the challenge of extending the experiences at Olin College and Insper to its main engineering schools aiming at producing more motivated, creative and innovative engineers.

8. Challenges and prospects

Based on the analysis outlined, the development of engineering is evidently an important requirement for supporting business and economic success in Brazil. Clearly, there is a need to enhance the proportion of PhD holders and qualified individuals in engineering, with the aim of having a higher number of professionals equipped to operate the business and scientific systems in engineering. In particular, there is a demand for professionals who are able to perform duties in research, development and innovation at companies, bolstering this weak branch of the Brazilian business system. The need to increase the number of PhD holders in engineering has been highlighted in the National Graduate Qualification Plans. The latest plans (2011-2020) specially highlighted the objective of broadening Brazilian graduate qualifications in technology and engineering. This was defined as one of the greatest challenges with regard to the interplay between academic research and the business world, which is crucial to the development of strategic sectors in the country. Another obvious challenge is that of enhancing the formalization of engineering knowledge generated in the country through quality publications. Planning is also needed to enhance certain engineering fields that are vital to a Brazilian development strategy. The reinforcement of chemical and electrical engineering, for instance, is necessary to support industry. Notably, chemical engineering accounts for 10.2 per cent of Brazil’s engineering bibliographic production, while the worldwide proportion is close to 12.4 per cent of all engineering. This type of analysis, though simplified, represents a way to seek balance between interconnected engineering fields, helping the country to understand how it can find its place on the world stage. In further respect to the chemical industry*, chemical products represent the fourth most significant participation in industrial GDP, and the net turnover of the Brazilian chemical industry occupies fifth place at the global level. Nevertheless, the trade deficit for chemical products has increased enormously, from US$1.5bn in 1991 to US$32.2bn in 2013, highlighting the need to strengthen national chemical engineering.

The analysis of the roles of engineers at companies and in research should also be a guide to establish priorities in the sector’s development. Furthermore, attention needs to be paid to the integration of engineering fields, especially production engineering and the other modalities. Mastery of technologies that enable innovation, for instance, nanotechnology, mechatronics and innovating materials, has triggered almost unlimited transformation in the development of new products and in the addition of features to existing products. Mastery of such technology in the sphere of engineering should be one of the priorities in creating new fields of specialization. Another challenge is the consolidation of the complete engineer-researcher paradigm. The profile of this professional should combine the skills of research and innovation with an entrepreneurial spirit. There is a great opportunity to develop Brazilian business, which depends considerably on this complete professional operating in the sector of business RD&I. The engineer-researcher should not just publish in the best engineering journals but should also be able to monitor the business sector so that they may make valuable contributions to science. Besides, they should seek ways to enable the implantation of their ideas in public or private companies. Thus, they can maintain a continuous learning experience regarding the specific demands and strengthen the virtuous circle of innovation, generating the necessary social impacts for Brazil.

The opportunities for engineers are numerous and should be seized to the maximum. In particular, with respect to the Science without Borders program, engineers were able to gain skills at some of the world’s best universities, both at undergraduate and graduate levels (professional master’s, PhD and post-doctoral studies). Moreover, this experience was complemented through the completion of research internships at foreign and multinational companies, during students’ mobility abroad. With qualified students, such integration brings the experience of these centers to the collaboration between universities and companies in engineering. Moreover, emphasis is to be placed on collaboration with international companies in Brazil, which bring experience and expertise to Brazilian companies, and collaboration with major engineering centers worldwide, in Europe, the US and Asian countries. Certainly, the country must not waste the opportunity to establish academic collaborations in engineering with Brazilian companies or with clusters of Brazilian companies, which, at present, really need innovation to grow more quickly.

The development of collaboration networks, with the aim of supporting research geared toward subjects concerning the paired sectors, business/technology, which include research into new business models coupled with the development of production systems and of product technologies; the EMBRAPII model follows this line;

The creation of human resources training programs that face the challenges described in this analysis so as to stimulate collaboration with the business sector; and

The development of new, small companies, the expertise of which can cater for the demands of larger enterprises; the professional Master’s is a very appropriate mechanism for convergence with companies; this modality has been included as an affordable modality by the Science without Borders program.

Finally, one prospect that cannot be ignored is environmental sustainability in the RD&I activities in engineering. This represents simultaneously a challenge for humanity and a great opportunity for inclusion in global markets, which are increasingly aware of the problems of human resources shortages and global warming. New business models that prioritize the sale of a service to use a product, rather than the commercialization of the physical goods, are revolutionizing the market, as exemplified by UBER and AIRBNB. Such business models are more sustainable and demand a new vision of product and process engineering. The paradigm of environmental sustainability and the tools for life-cycle analysis must, therefore, be present across all the RD&I activities in engineering, from the conception of the human need for a product to its production and disposal.

9. Conclusions

Engineering is a powerful instrument for promoting the social and economic development of nations. Its enhancement is a strategic element to accelerate Brazil’s progress. The data analysis shows that emerging nations have invested heavily in the growth of their engineering. There is a need to continue investing in the development of Brazilian engineering through maintaining academic mobility programs, such as Science without Borders, as well as implementing new teaching methodologies and integrating globally, through the financing of international research projects. The distribution of this investment in the various fields of engineering must be balanced, taking into account national strategies and the technological interrelations between the fields analyzed in this article. Brazil has strong potential for development in the various fields of engineering and must seize this opportunity in the most efficient and timely manner.

Participation (per cent) of scientists operating at universities, in government and industry in Brazil and various countries

Model to support the business sector in Brazil

Participation of engineers-researchers in the model of Figure 2

Top 20 global participation per country[ 7 ] in qualified publications in engineering (2010-2014)

Global vs Brazilian distribution (by field) of qualified publications in engineering (2010-2014)

Comparison of qualified production in the various fields of engineering across Brazil, The Netherlands and South Korea (2010-2014)

Science without Borders scholarships – main fields considered (2011-2014)

Position of Brazil in the rankings for countries that invest the highest percentages of GDP in S&T

Countries		GDP in S&T (%)	Scientists and engineers per one million inhabitants	HDI
World Ranking	Country			Index	World Ranking
1	Israel	4.2	8.282	0.888	19
2	South Korea	4.2	6.457	0.891	15
3	Japan	3.5	5.201	0.890	17
4	Finland	3.3	7.188	0.879	24
5	Sweden	3.3	6.473	0.898	12
6	Denmark	3.1	7.265	0.900	10
7	Switzerland	3.0	4.481	0.917	3
8	Germany	2.9	4.472	0.911	6
9	Austria	2.8	4.704	0.881	21
10	USA	2.8	4.019	0.914	5
11	Slovenia	2.6	4.217	0.874	25
12	Taiwan	2.4	NR	0.719	91
13	Australia	2.3	4.335	0.933	2
14	Belgium	2.3	4.003	0.881	21
15	France	2.2	4.153	0.884	20
16	Singapore	2.0	6.442	0.901	9
17	The Netherlands	2.0	4.303	0.915	4
18	China	2.0	1.089	0.719	91
19	Czech Republic	1.9	3.251	0.861	28
20	Estonia	1.7	3.339	0.840	33
21	Canada	1.6	4.490	0.902	8
22	England	1.6	4.055	0.892	14
23	Scotland	1.6	4.055	0.892	14
24	Ireland	1.6	3.371	0.899	11
25	Hungary	1.4	2.523	0.818	43
26	Portugal	1.4	4.142	0.822	41
27	Italy	1.3	1.974	0.872	26
28	Spain	1.2	2.653	0.869	27
29	Brazil	1.2	698	0.744	79
30	Russia	1.1	3.073	0.778	57

Note:

Filing party	Total	World Ranking
WHIRLPOOL S.A.	21	993
MAHLE METAL LEVE S.A.	18	1,153
BRASKEM S.A.	16	1,292
PETROBRAS	14	1,466
UFMG	10	1,980
UNESP	8	2,415
SLIM DRILLING SERVIÇOS DE PERFURAÇÃO S.A.	7	2,702
PUCRS	6	3,070
WEG EQUIPAMENTOS ELETRÔNICOS S.A.	6	3,070
IPT-SP	5	3,595
Total Brazil	547	25

Source:

The global ranking of each country for the indicator appears in parentheses;

In Cites TM database, Thomson Reuters (2015);

The World Bank Development Indicators (WDI);

World Intellectual Property Organization (International filings via WIPO Administered Treaties-PCT);

Data relative to 2012;

Data relative to 2010

This research, conducted across 36 countries, regarding the difficulty of companies to find qualified workers, ranked Brazil in second place, behind only Japan. This shortage affects jobs for both technicians and engineers.

The advances in investment for Brazil in S,T&I from the year 2000, illustrated in the World Bank table at: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/GB.XPD.RSDV.GD.ZS?end=2013&locations=BR&start=2000&view=chart

Geocapes. available at: http://geocapes.capes.gov.br/geocapesds/# (accessed February 2017).

The Conference Board. Corporate Sustainability in Brazil available at: www.conference-board.org/publications/publicationdetail.cfm?publicationid=2763 (accessed 10 October 2014).

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Further reading

Agopyan , V. and Oliveira , J.F.G. ( 2005 ), Mestrado Profissional em Engenharia: Uma Oportunidade Para Incrementar a Inovação Colaborativa entre Universidades e os Setores de Produção no Brasil , RBPG , Revista Brasileira de Pós-Graduação , Vol. 2 , p. 79 - 89 .

Brasil ( 2012 ), Presidência da República, Secretaria de Assuntos Estratégicos , Desigualdade, Heterogeneidade e Diversidade , Revista .

Guimarães , J.A. , Oliveira , J.F. and Prata , A.T. ( 2007 ), Engenharia e Desenvolvimento no Brasil. Desafios e Perspectivas , Parcerias Estratégicas/CGEE (Dezembro 2007) , available at: seer.cgee.org.br/index.php/parcerias_estrategicas/article/viewFile/307/301 (accessed 15 September 2016 ).

Tseng , M.M. ( 2003 ), “ Industry development perspectives: Global Distribution of World Market ”, CIRP 53rd General Assembly , Montreal .

Vozes da Classe Média - Caderno 2 ( 2012 ), Brasília, SAE, 2012 , available at: www.sae.gov.br/site/wp-content/ciclodepalestras/livro.php?id=121204180855-51e2317d73f748b48c1586288e1dd27c&name=Vozes%20da%20Classe%20Media%20Segundo%20Caderno (accessed 20 September 2014 ).

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• Published: 21 January 2021

Direct from the COVID-19 crisis: research and innovation sparks in Brazil

• Mário Fabrício Fleury Rosa   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-4821-9007 1 ,
• Everton Nunes da Silva 1 ,
• Christina Pacheco 2 ,
• Marcos Vinícius Pereira Diógenes 2 ,
• Christopher Millett 3 , 4 ,
• Carlos Augusto Grabois Gadelha 5 &
• Leonor Maria Pacheco Santos 1  

Health Research Policy and Systems volume  19 , Article number:  10 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has spread throughout more than 160 countries, infecting millions of people worldwide. To address this health emergency, countries have organized the flow of production and innovation to reduce the impact on health. This article shows the response of the Brazilian scientific community to meet the urgent needs of the public unified health system [SUS], aiming to guarantee universal access to an estimated population of 211 million. By December 2020, Brazil had recorded more than six million cases and approximately 175,000 deaths.

We collected data on research, development and innovation projects carried out by 114 public universities (plus Oswaldo Cruz Foundation [Fiocruz] and Butantan Institute), as reported on their websites. Additionally, we examined the studies on COVID-19 approved by the National Comission for Research Ethics, as well as those reported on the Ministry of Education website as of May 15, 2020.

The 789 identified projects were classified according to research categories as follows: development and innovation ( n  = 280), other types of projects ( n  = 226), epidemiologic research ( n  = 211), and basic research on disease mechanisms ( n  = 72). Most proposals focused on the development and innovation of personal protective equipment, medical devices, diagnostic tests, medicines and vaccines, which were rapidly identified as research priorities by the scientific community. Some promising results have been observed from phase III vaccine trials, one of which is conducted in partnership with Oxford University and another of which is performed with Sinovac Biotech. Both trials involve thousands of volunteers in their Brazilian arms and include technology transfer agreements with Fiocruz and the Butantan Institute, respectively. These vaccines proved to be safe and effective and were immediately licensed for emergency use. The provision of doses for the public health system, and vaccination, started on January 17, 2021.

Conclusions

The mobilized Brazilian scientific community has generated comprehensive research, development and innovation proposals to meet the most urgent needs. It is important to emphasize that this response was only possible due to decades of investment in research, development and innovation in Brazil. We need to reinforce and protect the Brazilian science, technology and innovation system from austerity policies that disregard health and knowledge as crucial investments for Brazilian society, in line with the constitutional right of universal health access and universal health coverage.

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The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has forced health authorities around the world to propose social distancing and other measures, mainly due to the ease of transmission and dissemination of the virus through the air [ 1 ]. In addition to personal protective equipment (PPE) for populations and health professionals, products such as mechanical respirators have become essential to combat the deadly impact of the pandemic. The disease has spread to more than 160 countries, infecting millions of people globally. Estimates of severe cases have been the main concern of health authorities worldwide [ 2 ].

This global health emergency has demanded urgent responses to lessen the impact of the pandemic, forcing the international scientific community to develop and improve interventions that can assist public policies in slowing the spread of the pandemic in their communities. In Brazil, the research, development and innovation (RD&I) sectors have suffered severe budget cuts since 2018 [ 3 ]. Recently, government officials have denied scientific findings by saying “So what!” as described in The Lancet editorial, “COVID-19 in Brazil: So What?” [ 4 ]. However, universities and public research centers have remained focused on their social responsibility and have continued to work diligently to help control and mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic, using a voluntary work force and the existing research infrastructure in a clear demonstration of strong institutional resilience.

On February 26, 2020, the first case of COVID-19 was identified in Brazil. By May 15, when we conducted this survey, 218,000 confirmed cases and 14,000 deaths due to COVID-19 had been reported. These figures had jumped to six million cases and 175,000 deaths by December 2020; with regard to the number of cases and deaths, Brazil ranks third internationally. This illustrates the challenge facing our public Unified Health System (SUS) in providing universal access to care and universal health coverage, as recommended by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) [ 5 ] and guaranteed by the Brazilian Constitution, to an estimated population of 211 million in a country with a vast territory and wide regional and social inequalities [ 6 ].

Given this context, this article investigates how the Brazilian scientific community responded during the very early stages of the COVID-19 epidemic.

The research and development (R&D) scenario in Brazil

The Brazilian science and technology (S&T) system is composed of public universities and public research centers; this helps to explain how health research has developed in Brazil over time. Research in the area of COVID-19 shows that even with the scarcity of funding, universities and public research centers support national scientific development.

In Brazil, scientific research in the field of public health in the early twentieth century encouraged the development of the national health research systems [ 7 ], starting with the creation of public research centers such as the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) in Rio de Janeiro in 1900 and the Butantan Institute in São Paulo in 1901. The creation of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences (ABC) followed shortly thereafter, in 1916. The history of Brazil’s health research system is intertwined with the creation of a network of publicly funded universities. The first public university was Amazonas Federal University, founded in 1909, followed by substantial federal government investments that led to the creation of 36 universities by 1974. After three decades of stagnation and deterioration (1975–2004), investments in higher education accelerated substantially under Presidents Lula and Dilma (2003–2016). They launched the “Restructuring and Expansion of Federal Universities Project,” REUNI (2003–2012), which created 15 new universities, in addition to refurbishing installations, infusing the faculty with qualified researchers, increasing available spaces for students in undergraduate courses, expanding the availability of evening courses and promoting pedagogical innovations, all with the aim of reducing social inequalities in the country [ 8 ]. In fact, 23% of the existing federal universities started during this period, resulting in an unprecedented democratization of access to high-level education. At present, this network of public universities encompasses 68 highly qualified and autonomous universities that are completely free (unlike universities in the United States and European countries) and offer scholarships (tax-free) for undergraduate and graduate (masters, doctoral) students as well as postdocs. In addition, there are 41 public universities maintained by state governments and five financed by municipal governments. This network of 114 institutions [ 9 ] is undoubtedly an important and integral part of the scientific and cultural heritage of the nation [ 10 ].

The implementation of the national science and technology policy started in 1951, with the creation of the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) and the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES), which contributed to transforming universities and public research centers into vectors for RD&I. From 2004 to 2014, the coordinated efforts of the Ministry of Health’s Department of Science and Technology (DECIT), CNPq and CAPES encouraged the establishment of a health science, technology and innovation policy [ 11 ]. In addition, an agenda of health research priorities was generated and implemented, with 3586 projects financed [ 12 ]. Starting in 2004, federal RD&I investments were also on the rise. A recent report from the Brazilian Institute of Applied Economic Research (IPEA) analyzed RD&I expenditures from 2000 to 2020. Prior to 2004, the expenditures amounted to approximately R$4 million per year. This amount increased steadily, reaching R$13 million in 2015, but afterwards sharp reductions occurred, and by 2018 the budget had been reduced to R$5.1 million [ 3 ].

Brazil ranked 13th in international scientific publications in 2015 [ 11 ]. The development of the public university research infrastructure, as mentioned before, together with federal RD&I investments from 2004 to 2015 were decisive factors facilitating the achievement of this rank [ 3 ].

Development, innovation and the health economic-industrial complex in Brazil

Because of the COVID-19 public health emergency, societies in virtually all countries had to organize their flow of production and innovation in the hope of reducing the impact on the health systems and guaranteeing adequate health care for the population. The RD&I sectors in each country have assumed the immense responsibility of generating the domestic responses to reduce the impacts on the healthcare and economic systems of their regions because, given the magnitude of this pandemic, imports of healthcare products and supplies are limited by the scarcity of products on the international market. Those countries with established health production systems (that involve different production chains) are more likely to avoid shortages of raw materials and finished products that are essential for combatting the pandemic.

However, in Brazil, the knowledge generated by ongoing research that led to Brazil ranking 13th in terms of scientific publications did not lead to proportional advances in the development of organizational processes and technologies. This could explain why, in 2016, Brazil ranked 69th on the Global Innovation Index. During the pandemic, Brazilian universities struggled to overcome the wide disparity between the high level of production of scientific knowledge and the low level of scientific innovation. In the “ecosystem” of economic and social development in which the production sector and government participate, the university sector must play a fundamental role in transforming knowledge into solutions that confer benefits to society [ 13 ].

From 2004 to 2015, a concerted effort was made in Brazil to stimulate the triple helix model of innovation, which describes the interactions among universities, industries and governments [ 14 ]. Such interactions are considered key to innovation in increasingly knowledge-based societies, such as China, as well as in other developing countries [ 15 ]. The paradigm known as the Brazilian health economic-industrial complex (HEIC) considers the health sector to be part of the production and innovation system that generates wealth and jobs; this concept was present in the advancement of SUS in recent decades, during which it operated in accordance with the market. The rationale that guided the public policies resulting from this paradigm emphasized the systemic approach and the use of states’ purchasing power to push sectorial development [ 16 ]. From this point of view, the health sector is part of the developmental agenda and supports innovation and economic development through health industrial complexes [ 17 ].

Given this context, this article investigates how the Brazilian scientific community has responded to the threat of COVID-19. The knowledge accrued by universities, institutes and public health research centers was challenged by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the scientific sector responded immediately by producing health solutions to mitigate the destructive progress of the ongoing pandemic. We intend to show the immediate response and commitment of the Brazilian scientific community. Most of these actions were taken as the result of the scientists’ own initiative and desire to meet the most urgent needs of the population affected by COVID-19, and not in response to specific calls for proposals.

To analyze the actions taken by Brazilian scientists to meet the needs arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, we collected official RD&I projects carried out by 114 Brazilian public universities (plus Fiocruz and Butantan), as reported on their institutional websites (access May 10–15, 2020). Additionally, we examined all the studies on COVID-19 that had been submitted to and approved by the National Comission for Research Ethics (CONEP) as of May 15, 2020 [ 18 ]. Third, we analyzed all the RD&I proposals available on the Ministry of Education official website on May 15, 2020, which were obtained with web-scraping computational tools.

We then analyzed and classified the projects into categories according to information obtained from the proposals’ titles and/or summaries. The following categories emerged:

Basic research on disease mechanisms: genetic sequencing, viral mutations, physiopathology, immunological profiles and clinical manifestations of COVID-19.

Epidemiologic research: distribution and evolution of the disease, risk factors for COVID-19.

Development and innovation (D&I), organized into five subcategories: (a) personal protective equipment (PPE): face shields, masks, disinfection mechanisms; (b) medical devices: respirators, ventilators, mobile ICUs; (c) diagnostic tests: novel tests, rapid tests, alternative body fluid samples, test accuracy; (d) vaccines: development of vaccines against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2); (e) medications and therapy: drugs, novel treatments for COVID-19.

Other types of projects: research relevant to COVID-19 and its social, psychological and economic consequences.

The projects under the category of D&I demonstrate the potential for developing new technologies, resulting in the transfer of technology from universities to the production sector and interactions with the health economic-industrial complex.

Results and discussion

There was a rapid reaction from Brazilian scientists; the search on the official websites of each of the 114 public universities, which are distributed throughout Brazil, retrieved information on 551 R&D projects, the majority of which originated in the Southeast region. As of May 15, 2020, scientists had presented 270 research protocols related to COVID-19 to CONEP, including 46 clinical trials and 224 observational studies, which were located in 24 of the 27 states. Finally, the Ministry of Education's official website reported approximately 73 proposals. In total, 894 initiatives were retrieved; after the elimination of duplicates, 789 RD&I projects were analyzed and are shown in the following tables/figures. The details are provided in Additional files 1  (Creation of Public Federal Universities and Public State Universities in Brazil, 1909–2018), 2 (Federal investments in research and development. Brazil 2000–2020) and 3 (Research, development & innovation about COVID-19 by institution, Brazil 2020).

Table 1 presents the research projects, classified into categories as described before. With regard to the four broad categories, the majority of proposals ( n  = 280) were D&I projects that focused on PPE, medical devices, diagnostic tests, vaccines and medicines, which were rapidly identified as research priorities by the scientific community. These topics are extremely important under the current circumstances for the development of the health economic-industrial complex and the Brazilian capacity to attend to health needs [ 16 ].

The initiatives indicate a focus on translational health research [ 19 ] involving the transfer of knowledge generated in the basic sciences to the production of new products such as medicines, equipment, PPE, diagnostic tests and innovative treatment options. These 280 projects aim to bridge the gap between bench research and its application in health [ 19 , 20 ].

The map of the Brazilian geographic regions in Fig.  1 shows the distribution of research proposals developed by public universities, stratified by the project categories. Public universities from all Brazilian regions were involved. The Southeast and Northeast regions accounted for 55.0% and 16.1% of the proposals, respectively. The Central West, South and North regions accounted for 13.2%, 11.9% and 3.8%, respectively.

Regional distribution of research on COVID-19 in Brazil, May 15, 2020

In terms of financial support, there was information on 140 projects that received funding, 116 of which were developed by federal universities and 24 led by state universities. The project category most likely to receive funds was D&I (25.7%), especially vaccine development (50.0%), as such projects present the health solutions most in line with the urgent needs of the healthcare system (Table 2 ). At the time of our data collection, the number of research proposals that had received funding was relatively low. This first analysis showed that despite inadequate funding, the Brazilian D&I sector offered scientific and technological options capable of strengthening the health production chain in response to the public health emergency caused by the spread of COVID-19.

Out of the 789 research projects included and analyzed, there were only 10 vaccine projects (50% of which were financed). Considering the highly sophisticated laboratory facilities and clinical requirements for vaccine development, this is reasonable. However, there is evidence that the most promising vaccines for SUS and for the Brazilian population may come from two of these vaccine trials. One candidate vaccine based on the spike (S) glycoprotein is developed in partnership with Oxford University in the United Kingdom. The phase III study is under way and plans to enroll more than 30,000 volunteers worldwide. Brazil will participate in the tests, providing approximately 2000 volunteers under the supervision of the Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP) [ 10 ] and Fiocruz [ 21 ]. This partnership involves the production, by Fiocruz, of 100 million doses of the vaccine for the Brazilian population; 30 million doses could be available in December 2020/January 2021 [ 21 ]. The other trial was of the CoronaVac vaccine, developed by the Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac Biotech, which involved 9000 volunteers in São Paulo, Brazil, in the final phase III trial. If proven effective and safe, national production will commence immediately due to technology transfer agreements with Butantan in São Paulo. The provision of doses to the SUS will be possible as early as June 2021 [ 22 ].

There are 211 projects classified as epidemiologic research, which include the development of several observatories, surveillance systems and mobile phone apps for COVID-19 monitoring at the local and national levels, especially for vulnerable populations. One example is MONITORA COVID-19, developed by Fiocruz ( https://bigdata-covid19.icict.fiocruz.br/ ), and another is the COVID-19 BR Observatory, established by the Federal University of ABC ( https://covid19br.github.io/ ).

The COVID-19 health emergency is reminding all members of the scientific community of the reasons we embarked on research careers: we know that research is vital and valuable and can save lives. During this crisis, we are accelerating research production [ 23 ]. It is reassuring that society has come to recognize the fundamental role of solid scientific evidence [ 24 ].

Strong mobilization of the Brazilian scientific community took place in a very short time to respond to the COVID-19 crisis, presenting 789 scientific proposals to address the most urgent problems posed by the pandemic. The interaction of universities, industries and governments is essential. In the absence of this linkage in Brazil, it is virtually impossible to perform translational research, that is, to take the results from the bench to the bedside, and from there to the healthcare system. It is necessary to enhance and encourage the interaction between universities and public research centers, which are involved in the production of scientific knowledge, and private companies, which specialize in production on an industrial scale.

However, it must be emphasized that the rapid response observed in this survey was only possible due to decades of investment in the RD&I system in Brazil. We need to reinforce and protect this system from austerity policies that disregard health and knowledge as crucial investments for Brazilian society, in line with the constitutional right to universal health access and universal health coverage.

Availability of data and materials

All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article and its Additional information files.

Abbreviations

Personal protective equipment

Unified Health System

Pan American Health Organization

Oswaldo Cruz Foundation

Brazilian Academy of Sciences

Restructuring and Expansion of Federal Universities Project

National Council for Scientific and Technological Development

Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel

Research, development and innovation

Ministry of Health’s S&T Department

Institute of Applied Economic Research

Brazilian health economic-industrial complex

Federal University of São Paulo

Development and innovation

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the following volunteers (undergraduate and graduate students) who collected data from universities’ websites: AKP Silva, CF Pedrosa, CM Maia, FDPD Lima, DEC Santana, DM Gabriel, DCP Morais, GL Ribeiro, JLS Braz, JC Nascimento, KB Noleto, LM Santos, PVM Batista, RM Freitas, SS Silva, SMS Felipe, TS Chaves and YS Silva.

No funds were used to conduct this study. One of the authors (CP) is a postdoctoral fellow in computer science at the State University of Rio Grande do Norte, with a scholarship from the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES).

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All the authors contributed to the theoretical-methodological conception of the study. CP, LMPS, MVPD and MFFR collaborated in data acquisition, analysis and interpretation. MFFR and LMPS generated the final version of the article. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Additional file 1.

: Creation of Public Federal Universities and Public State Universities in Brazil 1909–2018.

Additional file 2

: Federal investments in research and development in Brazil 2000–2020.

Additional file 3

: Research, development & innovation about COVID-19 by institution, Brazil 2020.

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Rosa, M.F.F., da Silva, E.N., Pacheco, C. et al. Direct from the COVID-19 crisis: research and innovation sparks in Brazil. Health Res Policy Sys 19 , 10 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12961-020-00674-x

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Published : 21 January 2021

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s12961-020-00674-x

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Universities

Universities, especially public, maintain regular groups and lines of research, in which D octoral, M aster’s and even undergraduate students from scientific initiation programs participate , under the guidance of professors . Learn more from a panorama of Brazilian universities and their involvement in research and innovation.

Brazil currently has an extensive and decentralized higher education system. All together, the country has 2,457 higher education institutions, which offer 41,953 undergraduate courses in all regions. The data are included in the Census of Higher Education 2020 and were released by the Ministry of Education (MEC) and the “Anísio Teixeira” National Institute of Educational Studies and Research (INEP) in February 2022 . According to the survey, there are 304 public and 2,153 private higher education institutions in Brazil.  

In line with their academic orientation, the institutions are classified as universities, university centers, colleges, and federal institutes. They can be public or private, linked to federal, state or municipal governments.  

Universities are characterized by the integral nature of their teaching, research, and extension activities. They are multidisciplinary academic institutions that produce institutionalized intellectual knowledge. To do so, they must follow the requirements of the Ministry of Education (MEC), such as having at least one-third of the teaching staff working on a full-time basis and one third with Master’s and Doctoral degrees.  

University centers include one or more areas of knowledge, but institutionalized research is not mandatory for them. Colleges are institutions that offer higher education in only one area of knowledge and can be part of a university, university centers, or independent.  

Federal institutes are dedicated to technical training, providing professional skills in different areas. They offer a high school education integrated with technical education, technical courses, university technology courses, undergraduate, and graduate degrees.  

As for private institutions, they may or may not have a for-profit purpose. Among those that do not have this objective are the community, philanthropic or confessional types.  

In all 27 states, there are federal and state universities. The fact is that Brazil did not have any higher education institutions until the beginning of the 19 th century. After the Independence of Brazil, the first advanced schools emerged, in a scattered fashion, without university status but with a professional focus, especially in the areas of law, medicine, and engineering. The University of São Paulo, one of the most important in the country, was founded in 1934.

Numbers and Statistics

The number of university students increased significantly in Brazil after the creation of ProUni, which is the Ministry of Education program that grants scholarships to Brazilian students in higher education institutions. Scholarships can be full or partial (50%) in private institutions of higher education, in undergraduate and sequential courses for specific training.  

The 2020 Higher Education Census, released by the “Anísio Teixeira” National Institute of Educational Studies and Research (INEP) , reports that the number of admissions remains stable in private institutions. In addition, the material showed that 87.6% of higher education institutions in Brazil are private. Another relevant fact is that, of the 2,457 higher education institutions in Brazil, 77% are colleges. See all the numbers and statistics referring to the last Higher Education Census here .

According to the assessment of the  QS World University Ranking 2022 , Brazil is the Latin American country with the largest number of world-renowned universities. Two of Brazil’s universities are ranked among the top ten in Latin America: the University of São Paulo (USP) and the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP).  

This time, 35 Brazilian educational institutions were included in the ranking , eight more than in the previous edition. Although Brazil has the largest number of recognized universities in Latin America, none of them were among the top 100 in the world.  

USP achieved the best position with 121 st place, followed by UNICAMP (219 th place) and the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ – 369 th place). USP has been among the top universities in the country for years and has maintained its position in relation to the ranking of the previous year.  

The institutions are ranked according to six indicators: academic standing, reputation for employability, citations per university, proportion of faculty per student, and number of international faculty and students.  

In the 2022 Times Higher Education (THE) British magazine ranking, published in September 2021, USP appears as the best Latin American university, ranked in the same position as last year, in the group of 201-250, the second best Brazilian university in the ranking is UNICAMP, classified in the 401-500 group. In all, 70 Brazilian universities are included in the ranking of 1,662 universities from all over the world.

According to the   Ranking Xangai 2021 (Academic Ranking of World Universities – ARWU) , USP continued to hold its position as the best university in Brazil, in the group of 101-200. The Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) is tied in second place with Paulista State University (UNESP) and the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), which are included in the group of 301-400.  

This ranking is based on six parameters that include, among others, the number of Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, the number of first-level research publications, and the number of times researchers from each university are cited within their areas of expertise.  

In the Folha University Number (RUF) 2019 ranking, USP held first place with 98.02 points and UNICAMP second with 97.09 points. The other eight institutions are: UFRJ (97.00), UFMG (96.72), UFRGS (95.68), UNESP (92.67), UFSC (92.58), UFPR (92.02), UnB (91.21) and UFPE (89.77).  

The Folha de S.Paulo newspaper establishes an annual ranking. This year included 197 Brazilian universities and takes into consideration instructional levels, market placement, research conducted, internationalization, and innovation achievement.

More From Forbes

The brazil tech and innovation round-up: report examines são paulo startup investment, digital citizen services increase, surveillance gets challenged.

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Welcome to this week's news round-up on the Brazilian innovation and technology ecosystem. Here is a selection of key developments in Latin America's largest economy during the week ending April, 24, 2020:

São Paulo concentrates tech-based startups and investment in Brazil

São Paulo startups attract more funding than entire Latin nations

The state of São Paulo concentrated about 83% of all investment in technology-based startups in the last few months and attracted more funding than the entire funding raised by several Latin American countries.

According to the São Paulo Tech report produced by Brazilian innovation center network Distrito in partnership with the Brazilian Startups Association (ABStartups) and KPMG , São Paulo-based ventures attracted over USD 2.8 billion in investments between 2019 and 2020.

The study noted that in the same period, this single Brazilian state attracted a greater sum than the total investment raised by the tech startup ecosystem in Chile, Colombia, Argentina and Mexico altogether.

There are 2677 startups in São Paulo active in 34 sectors, according to the study. Of these, 70% are concentrated in the capital , São Paulo, where 70.8% of startups in the state are based, followed by the cities of Campinas (5%), Barueri (2.8%), Ribeirão Preto (2.7%) and São José dos Campos (2,6%).

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São Paulo startups are typically led by men (82.9%) aged between 30-35 years old. Fintechs represent 13.5% of startups based in the state, followed by adtechs , ventures focused on the segments of ​​marketing, advertising and communication, which represent 11.8% of the total. Healthtechs account for 8.4% of all the ventures in the state.

About 100.000 people are employed by startups in the state of São Paulo. Of that total, 26.000 people are employed by fintechs, while 8.000 people work in adtech companies. Retail-focused startups employ around 7.000 people.

Brazil is accelerating digital citizen service provision

Brazil sees surge in digital citizen services usage

The Digital Government Service at the Brazilian Ministry of Economy has reported a hike in usage of online citizen services as a result of the Covid-19 outbreak. The Gov.BR platform , which has over 800 online offerings enabling Brazilians to request services ranging from benefits to a new driving licence, has had 9.4 million accesses in the first two weeks of April compared with 6.7 million accesses in March and 4.1 million in April.

The portal is currently under development and had 218 new services added as a response to the pandemic. The objective is to digitize all citizen services by December 2020. On a LinkedIn post, digital secretary Luis Felipe Monteiro said the government wants to create "the largest services marketplace in the world" - for that to happen, 80-100 million access a month will be needed and, according to Monteiro, Gov.BR is making progress towards that goal.

Use of data for monitoring purposes is on the rise in Brazil

Digital surveillance gets challenged in São Paulo

This week Brazil saw the first case of an individual successfully challenging the government's digital surveillance efforts in the pandemic. Local mobile operator TIM was told to remove a lawyer's details from a database used by the state government of São Paulo to monitor mobility patterns and identify crowds in the Covid-19 pandemic.

The São Paulo Court of Justice has ordered the removal of the complainant's information from the system, based on a request informed by claims around breach of privacy and freedom of movement, as well as abuse of power by the state government.

The decision, however, was limited to the deletion of the lawyer's details. Millions of citizens are currently being monitored by the system, which operates with anonymized mobile data and was launched earlier this month by the São Paulo state government in partnership with mobile operators. The state concentrates most of the Covid-19 cases in Brazil.

Also this week:

The Brazilian government is expanding Internet connectivity of the country's network of 42.000 family health centers . The initiative is as part of work around handling the Covid-19 outbreak and paves the way for telemedicine in the public health service. It is expected that over 16.000 health centers nationwide that previously didn’t have Internet access will be online by the end of April.

The smartphone segment will see the biggest impact of the Covid-19 pandemic in the consumer technology market in Latin America, followed by personal computers and tablets, according to market analyst IDC . The firm's new report on the implications of the coronavirus pandemic for the consumer tech market in Latin American countries predicts a decline between 10% and 15% in smartphone sales in 2020 and demand for tablets reducing by 17% to 20% compared to 2019. According to IDC, Latin America accounts for approximately 8% of global consumer hardware spending.

Indian budget hotel startup Oyo Rooms has made drastic reductions to its Brazil workforce of 700 staff. The SoftBank-backed company, which operates over 400 refurbished hotels nationwide and has been badly affected by the pandemic. Oyo did not confirm the exact number of employees axed, but inside sources say the Brazilian operation is now reduced to approximately 200 people.

The University of Caxias do Sul (UCS), in the Brazilian southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, has launched a new laboratory to produce nanomaterial graphene , the atom-thick honeycomb sheet of carbon atoms, on an industrial scale. According to the university, the UCS Graphene lab will be the first and largest industrial scale graphene production plant in Latin America implemented by a university, as well as the largest in productive capacity. Production capacity of the revolutionary material at UCS could reach up to 500 kilograms, expanding to 5.000 kilograms a year after 12 months.

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Research and innovation in higher education: empirical evidence from research and patenting in Brazil

• Published: 16 April 2018
• Volume 116 , pages 487–504, ( 2018 )

Cite this article

• João Ricardo Faria 1 ,
• Peter F. Wanke 2 ,
• João J. Ferreira 3 &
• Franklin G. Mixon Jr. 4  

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This study presents a hierarchical differential game between universities and scholars in order to examine innovation and research in higher education. In this stylized setup, scholars maximize the impact of their research, and universities maximize their market value. Innovations play a key role among the incentives given by the university to boost scholars’ productivity, as measured by academic publications and citations, which translates into scholars’ professional success. The scholars’ academic productivity increases university reputation and market value. Using Brazilian data, seemingly unrelated regression estimations suggest that the number of published papers grows with external funding and the percentage of faculty holding doctorate degrees, while the number of citations is associated with the presence of graduate programs and higher teaching quality. Market evaluation is, however, negatively affected by innovation, suggesting a lack of focus on patenting and technology transfer in Brazil.

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For recent examples, see Renault et al. ( 2016 ), Diánez-González and Camelo-Ordaz ( 2016 ), Horta et al. ( 2016 ), Soetanto and Jack ( 2016 ), Meoli and Vismara ( 2016 ), Dorner et al. ( 2017 ) and Galati et al. ( 2017 ).

See Audretsch and Caiazza ( 2016 ), Kalar and Antoncic ( 2016 ), Munari et al. ( 2016 ), Han and Kim ( 2016 ), Horne and Dutot ( 2017 ), Munari et al. ( 2017 ), Giudice et al. ( 2017 ) and Proskuryakova et al. ( 2017 ).

Cowan and Zinovyeva ( 2013 ), Sørensen and Landau ( 2015 ), Kafouros et al. ( 2015 ), Ponte et al. ( 2017 ) and Kolympiris and Klein ( 2017 ).

Sørensen and Landau ( 2015 ), Dastidar ( 2015 ), Coria and Zhang ( 2015 ), Li et al. ( 2016 ), Tai and Ting ( 2016 ), Busdieker-Jesse et al. ( 2016 ) and Osmonbekov et al. ( 2016 ).

Lin and Chang ( 2015 ), Lee et al. ( 2016 , 2017 ), Kapoor et al. ( 2016 ), Guo et al. ( 2017 ), Drivas et al. ( 2017 ).

Kolympiris and Klein ( 2017 ).

As the Triple Helix Research Group ( 2018 ), hereafter THRG, indicates, the Triple Helix model in Etzkowitz ( 1993 ) and Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff ( 1995 ) encompasses elements of precursor works by Lowe ( 1982 ) and Sábato and Mackenzie ( 1982 ). The THRG also points out that the Triple Helix approach encompasses not only the creative destruction that appears as a natural innovation dynamic (Schumpeter 1942 ), but also the creative renewal that arises within each of the three institutional spheres of university, industry and government, as well as at their intersections.

University productivity is defined by the sum of the research productivity of all of its faculty.

In seeking to understand how academic engagement differs from commercialization, which is often defined as intellectual property creation and academic entrepreneurship, Perkmannet al. ( 2013 ) develop a systematic review of research on the involvement of academic scientists in academic engagement. Their results suggest that there is a general lack of understanding about the consequences of academic engagement. As they conclude, “[e]vidence on the impact of these collaborations on other university activities, such as research and teaching, is scarce so it cannot be assumed that engagement activities are always beneficial and should therefore be promoted (Perkmann et al. 2013 : 443).”.

A contemporaneous study by Cowan and Zinovyeva ( 2013 ) investigates whether the development of a university system affected local industry innovation in Italy between 1985 and 2000. They find that opening of new schools increased regional innovation activity within 5 years, thus suggesting that local industry innovation is mostly caused by the high quality scientific research brought to the region with new schools.

Relatedly, Kolympiris and Klein ( 2017 ) assert that university incubators are usually seen as effective mechanisms for transforming academic research into commercially useful innovations and value-adding startups.

There are various definitions of spin-offs in the literature, although Pirnay et al. ( 2003 ) argue that they typically refer to new firms (with a special legal status) emerging from research institutions that are aimed at commercialization of knowledge produced by academic activities.

Recent studies also point to academic spin-offs as the most fruitful business alternative for promoting a commercial perspective vis-à-vis university research (Conceição et al. 2012 ; Diánez-González and Camelo-Ordaz 2016 ).

Recall the definition of the university’s market value given by ( 7 ), where the parameter, v , multiplies the number of publications, defined as the marginal impact of publications on a university’s market value.

Data on universities are generally difficult to procure, thus Brazil presents a useful case study.

ENADE, or Exame Nacional de Desempenho dos Estudantes, is a national exam that undergraduate students in Brazil take to evaluate the quality of undergraduate majors at universities.

Brazilian universities’ interaction with the private sector is bridged by public institutions (see Suzigan and Albuquerque 2011 ), such as the Oswaldo Cruz Institute and the Butantan Institute in health sciences, the Campinas Institute of Agronomy (IAC), Embrapa (Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation) in agrarian sciences, Embraer (Brazilian Aeronautics Corporation) in aeronautics, and Petrobras (Petróleo Brasileiro SA) in oil and gas production.

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João Ricardo Faria

COPPEAD Graduate Business School, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Peter F. Wanke

Business Sciences Research Unit, University of Beira Interior and NECE, Covilhã, Portugal

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Center for Economic Education, Columbus State University, Columbus, GA, USA

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The authors are grateful to two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on an earlier version. The usual caveat applies.

Mathematical appendix

The Hamiltonian, first order condition (FOC) and adjoint equation for the scholar are,

where λ is the shadow price of citations for the scholar. The university takes ( 7 ), ( 5 ) and the best-reply function of the scholar, given by ( 9 ) and ( 10 ). Its Hamiltonian, FOC and adjoint equations are,

Differentiating ( 21 ) with respect to time and inserting ( 22 ) yields the differential equation for the university’s innovations appearing as ( 8 ) in the main body of the text. Using ( 8 ), one can derive a differential equation for publications, which is obtained by differentiating ( 18 ) with respect to time and inserting ( 8 ) and ( 19 ).

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Faria, J.R., Wanke, P.F., Ferreira, J.J. et al. Research and innovation in higher education: empirical evidence from research and patenting in Brazil. Scientometrics 116 , 487–504 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-018-2744-4

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The world is pumping out 57 million tons of plastic pollution a year

A new study finds that every year people create 57 million tons of plastic pollution

The world creates 57 million tons of plastic pollution every year and spreads it from the deepest oceans to the highest mountaintop to the inside of people's bodies, according to a new study that also said more than two-thirds of it comes from the Global South.

It's enough pollution each year — about 52 million metric tons — to fill New York City’s Central Park with plastic waste as high as the Empire State Building, according to researchers at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom. They examined waste produced on the local level at more than 50,000 cities and towns across the world for a study in Wednesday’s journal Nature.

The study examined plastic that goes into the open environment, not plastic that goes into landfills or is properly burned. For 15% of the world's population, government fails to collect and dispose of waste, the study's authors said — a big reason Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa produce the most plastic waste. That includes 255 million people in India, the study said.

Lagos, Nigeria, emitted the most plastic pollution of any city, according to study author Costas Velis, a Leeds environmental engineering professor. The other biggest plastic polluting cities are New Delhi; Luanda, Angola; Karachi, Pakistan and Al Qahirah, Egypt.

India leads the world in generating plastic pollution, producing 10.2 million tons a year (9.3 million metric tons), far more than double the next big-polluting nations, Nigeria and Indonesia. China, often villainized for pollution, ranks fourth but is making tremendous strides in reducing waste, Velis said. Other top plastic polluters are Pakistan, Bangladesh, Russia and Brazil. Those eight nations are responsible for more than half of the globe's plastic pollution, according to the study's data.

The United States ranks 90th in plastic pollution with more than 52,500 tons (47,600 metric tons) and the United Kingdom ranks 135th with nearly 5,100 tons (4,600 metric tons), according to the study.

In 2022, most of the world’s nations agreed to make the first legally binding treaty on plastics pollution, including in the oceans. Final treaty negotiations take place in South Korea in November.

The study used artificial intelligence to concentrate on plastics that were improperly burned — about 57% of the pollution — or just dumped. In both cases incredibly tiny microplastics, or nanoplastics, are what turn the problem from a visual annoyance at beaches and a marine life problem to a human health threat, Velis said.

Several studies this year have looked at how prevalent microplastics are in our drinking water and in people's tissue, such as hearts , brains and testicles , with doctors and scientists still not quite sure what it means in terms of human health threats.

“The big time bomb of microplastics are these microplastics released in the Global South mainly,” Velis said. “We already have a huge dispersal problem. They are in the most remote places ... the peaks of Everest , in the Mariana Trench in the ocean, in what we breathe and what we eat and what we drink.”

He called it “everybody's problem” and one that will haunt future generations.

“We shouldn't put the blame, any blame, on the Global South,” Velis said. “And we shouldn't praise ourselves about what we do in the Global North in any way.”

It's just a lack of resources and ability of government to provide the necessary services to citizens, Velis said.

Outside experts worried that the study's focus on pollution, rather than overall production, lets the plastics industry off the hook. Making plastics emits large amounts of greenhouse gas that contribute to climate change .

“These guys have defined plastic pollution in a much narrower way, as really just macroplastics that are emitted into the environment after the consumer, and it risks us losing our focus on the upstream and saying, hey now all we need to do is manage the waste better," said Neil Tangri, senior director of science and policy at GAIA, a global network of advocacy organizations working on zero waste and environmental justice initiatives. “It’s necessary but it’s not the whole story.”

Theresa Karlsson, science and technical advisor to International Pollutants Elimination Network, another coalition of advocacy groups on environment, health and waste issues, called the volume of pollution identified by the study “alarming” and said it shows the amount of plastics being produced today is “unmanageable.”

But she said the study misses the significance of the global trade in plastic waste that has rich countries sending it to poor ones. The study said plastic waste trade is decreasing, with China banning waste imports. But Karlsson said overall waste trade is actually increasing and likely plastics with it. She cited EU waste exports going from 110,000 tons (100,000 metric tons) in 2004 to 1.4 million tons (1.3 million metric tons) in 2021.

Velis said the amount of plastic waste traded is small. Kara Lavender Law, an oceanography professor at the Sea Education Association who wasn't involved in the study, agreed, based on U.S. plastic waste trends. She said this was otherwise one of the more comprehensive studies on plastic waste.

Officials in the plastics industry praised the study.

“This study underscores that uncollected and unmanaged plastic waste is the largest contributor to plastic pollution and that prioritizing adequate waste management is critical to ending plastic pollution,” Chris Jahn, council secretary of the International Council on Chemical Associations, said in a statement. In treaty negotiations, the industry opposes a cap on plastic production.

The United Nations projects that plastics production is likely to rise from about 440 million tons (400 million metric tons) a year to more than 1,200 million tons (1,100 million metric tons, saying “our planet is choking in plastic.”

Jennifer McDermott contributed from Providence, Rhode Island.

Follow Seth Borenstein on X at @borenbears

Read more of AP’s climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/climate-and-environment

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org .

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Study: Tesla Leads When It Comes to Speed of Promoting Staff

Like the idea of working for a company that offers fast career progression? Well, electric car manufacturer Tesla is the quickest around in terms of the speed in which it gives its workers a promotion, according to a new study.

Staff at Tesla only have to wait an average of 10.4 months before they can expect to be promoted to a better role. That’s compared to the slowest in the study, mining corporation Rio Tinto, where the average wait time is more than eight years.

Jobs at Microsoft , financial institution JPMorgan, and drinks company Diageo also feature towards the top of the list. While German chemical company Linde has the highest promotion rate, with 57.2% of its workforce having come to their current position via an internal promotion.

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Future Promotions Are Sustainable

The research – which was carried out by CV creation company StandOut CV – found that the average waiting time for a promotion across companies is 30.4 months; that puts Tesla one year and eight months ahead of the curve.

Tesla also boasts a promotion rate (i.e. the amount of employees sampled who had reached their current position via a promotion) of 47.1%, which is ahead of the industry average of 43.1%.

JPMorgan (15.2 months), Diageo (15.5), Microsoft (16) and HSBC (17.2) place next on the leaderboard of companies offering the fastest average promotion time, with Rio Tinto (98), Linde (60.5), analytics company RELIX (53) and pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly (47.1) at the other end of that list.

While not necessarily promoting with speed, Linde tops the promotion rate chart at 57.2%, followed by Unilever (54%), Eli Lilly (52%) and infrastructure corporation Broadcom (51.7%). But getting a job at Google offers least chance of progression, coming in at just a 23% promotion rate.

“Most employees are due a promotion: on average, employees have worked in their current role for 48.6 months – 18.2 months longer than in their previous position at the company.” – StandOut CV

Get Ahead with Tech

Tech companies generally have the edge over other industries when it comes to the speed with which they promote people. Amazon (18.8 months) and NVIDIA (19.9), for example, performed admirably by this metric.

“On average, it took just over two years to be promoted in a tech company – 6 months quicker than the study average.”

That compares to favorably to pharmaceuticals/biotech and energy/chemicals companies, who are slower than that mean of 30.4 months to promote their staff.

World’s Largest Companies Surveyed

To come up with their data, StandOut CV appraised 20 of the biggest companies in the US and UK according to companiesmaketcap.com .

From there, they looked at the job profiles of 19,363 employees (between 944-999 per company) on LinkedIn in both territories, specifically looking at the last three listed employment titles on each employee’s job history.

They then calculated whether the employee’s most recent job change was a promotion, and what percentage of current employees at each company had been promoted from another position in the same company.

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Brazilian health biotech—fostering crosstalk between public and private sectors

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge Halla Thorsteinsdottir, Ana Lucia Delgado Assad, William Marandola, Eduardo Emrich Soares and Joao de S.B. Paes de Carvalho for their assistance and guidance. We also acknowledge the valuable comments of Christopher Earl, Charles Gardner, Mario Gobbo, Hannah Kettler, Marsha Wulff and Andrew Taylor in shaping the overall study design, and Billie-Jo Hardy for her editorial assistance. The McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health, Program on Life Sciences, Ethics and Policy is primarily supported by Genome Canada through the Ontario Genomics Institute and the Ontario Research Fund, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This study is also funded by the Rockefeller Foundation (New York) and BioVentures for Global Health (Washington, DC, USA), and through in-kind contributions from Burrill & Company (San Francisco) and Wulff Capital (Dallas). Other matching partners are listed at http://www.mrcglobal.org/ . A.S.D. and P.A.S. are supported by the McLaughlin Centre for Molecular Medicine. P.A.S. is supported by a Canadian Institutes of Health Research Distinguished Investigator award.

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Rahim Rezaie and Sarah E Frew: These authors contributed equally to this work.

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Rahim Rezaie, Sarah E Frew, Maya R Maliakkal, Abdallah S Daar, Abdallah S Daar & Peter A Singer

Wharton Health Care Systems, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 19104-6218, Pennsylvania, USA

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P.A.S. is a member of the Industrial Policy Advisory Committee of Merck Frosst Canada and in the past has received research funds from Merck & Co. He also serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of BioVeda Fund II in China. Stephen M. Sammut is affiliated with Burrill & Co., an international biotechnology venture capital firm, but which currently has no activities in Latin America.

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Healthier, happier, fairer: new research shows major life benefits from decarbonising transport

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With walking and cycling funding halved in the government’s recently released National Land Transport Programme , and a weaker transport emissions reduction plan, the potential health benefits of a low-carbon transport system have hit a real speed bump.

This is a pity, because one of the great promises of low-carbon transport is the health improvements that can accompany certain policy choices. Health is tangible, while decarbonisation policy is often complex and highly technical. People care deeply about health, both physical and mental.

However, we are now faced with climate and transport policy options that will have radically different implications for health.

To explore this, we looked at two distinct future transport pathways described by the Climate Change Commission. We found the choices New Zealand makes now will be crucial to improving people’s lives in the near future.

Transport and health

We already know transport systems cause a lot of disease and harm from air and noise pollution, physical inactivity and injury. Cancer, asthma, heart disease, premature birth, depression and dementia have all been linked to the effects of transport emissions.

It is hard to precisely quantify the health impacts of New Zealand’s current transport system. But we know it has a greater effect than tobacco , causes thousands of premature deaths each year and adds avoidable burdens to strained health services.

These impacts do not fall equally on different parts of the population. People with low incomes, for example, are more likely to die from road traffic injury. We also know those who drive the most (and have the most environmental impact) tend to experience the least adverse transport-related health outcomes.

Reducing transport emissions involves a series of choices about how we decarbonise. For example, we can emphasise vehicle electrification, change urban design, or pursue combinations of both.

To explore the health implications of this, our new research quantifies two possible transport pathways outlined in the Climate Change Commission’s 2021 advice to the government, Ināia tonu nei: a low emissions future for Aotearoa .

Behaviour and technology

Focusing on population health, health system costs, health inequity and transport greenhouse gas emissions, we modelled household travel under the two most distinct pathways out to 2050. We then compared these to the current transport system (as of 2018).

The two pathways – “further behaviour change” and “further technology change” – both rely on increasing public transport and reducing vehicle travel per person by 2050. The behaviour pathway achieves the most in those areas and includes a large increase in cycling.

Both pathways require a transition to electric cars, but the technology pathway gets to a 100% electric light fleet by 2050 compared to 89% in the behaviour pathway.

Compared to the 2018 transport system, we found both pathways would save lives, reduce health system costs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, the health gains were around two-and-half times greater in the behaviour pathway than the technology pathway (health savings were three times larger).

This was primarily because of the increased physical activity in this pathway. Lifecycle emissions reductions (for example, from the manufacture and destruction of a car, as well as driving it) were quite similar between the two pathways.

Similar impacts to tobacco reduction

We also modelled how the pathways would affect existing health inequities. We found the behaviour pathway could contribute to reducing healthy life expectancy differences between Māori and non-Māori.

This depended on how policies are implemented: the fairer the transport system, the better it is for health equity.

The potential health benefits of the behaviour pathway are of the same magnitude as those seen from tobacco market interventions such as a 10% tax increase and creation of a smoke-free generation.

These results are quite conservative, too. The Climate Change Commission assumed only minimal changes in walking. But the policies needed to deliver this pathway are all likely to increase walking substantially. And even the policies needed to achieve the technology pathway would increase walking.

Moreover, our health model itself is conservative. For example, we know the positive impacts of the behaviour pathway on mental health would be considerably larger than we were able to model.

Health and fairness

These findings also relate to the government’s emissions reduction plans, which were published after the Climate Change Commission delivered its advice.

The behaviour change pathway is similar to the approach taken in the first emissions reduction plan from 2022, so we can assume there would be comparable health impacts. In contrast, the approach in the draft second emissions reduction plan , published this year, is radically different.

This newer plan focuses on the emissions trading scheme (a pricing tool), increasing electric car charging infrastructure, and a few public transport projects (mainly in Auckland).

These policies are unlikely to have much impact on land transport emissions. Nor will they achieve the health benefits of even the technology pathway. Other transport policies – speed limit increases, expanded road building and weaker vehicle emissions standards – will likely counteract any potential benefits from the second emissions reduction plan, as well as make health worse.

This research illustrates how the way we choose to decarbonise transport is important. It adds to other local research showing that moving to a “planet-friendly” diet would result in large health, health equity and climate benefits.

Collectively these studies demonstrate how we can decarbonise in ways that meaningfully improve lives. And we can build support for climate policy by focusing on the things people truly value, such as health and fairness.

The author gratefully acknowledges her fellow researchers and co-authors on this project: Anja Mizdrak, Ryan Gage and Melissa McLeod, University of Otago; Rhys Jones and Alistair Woodward, University of Auckland; and Linda Cobiac, Griffith University.

• New Zealand
• Public transport
• Health equity
• Transport emissions
• Health costs
• Road transport
• transport injuries
• NZ Climate Change Commission
• NZ Emissions Reduction Plan
• New research, Australia New Zealand

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Study: These are the best models to buy used

You can save money and still get a solid ride..

Despite the extreme volatility in pricing over the last few years, used cars are still an excellent way to save money on your next vehicle purchase. That said, the sweet feeling of getting a good deal on a used car can go sour pretty quickly when things start breaking and expensive maintenance bills pile up. Consumer Reports (CR) recently compiled a list of the best used car models, polling its members to determine the vehicles with the strongest reliability and other attributes , and some of the higher-ranked models might surprise you.

Category winners include:

• Car under $10,000: 2017 Chevrolet Cruze
• Car under $15,000: 2019 Hyundai Elantra
• SUV under $15,000: 2018 Honda HR-V
• Hybrid under $20,000: 2021 Toyota Corolla Hybrid
• Small SUV under $20,000: 2021 Kia Sportage
• Hybrid under $20,000: 2018 Toyota RAV4 Hybrid
• Three-row SUV under $20,000: 2020 Mazda CX-9
• Luxury SUV under $20,000: 2020 Buick Envision
• Pickup truck under $20,000: 2015 Toyota Tacoma
• Sports car under $20,000: 2019 Mazda MX-5 Miata

It’s a little surprising to see vehicles like the Chevy Cruze top their segments , but CR generated its rankings by evaluating a range of criteria beyond basic factors like reliability. The publication evaluated ride quality, acceleration, fuel economy and advanced driver assistance systems, noting that the Cruze has a smooth ride and a spacious interior. At the same time, other models ranked highly for reliability and tech equipment.

CR also ranked the best brands to buy used, leaning on reliability rankings to generate the list. Lexus and Toyota took the top two spots, with scores that beat Mazda in third place by a significant margin. The publication cited Toyota and Lexus’ slow, deliberate vehicle updates as key factors in their reliability. Interestingly, some brands’ new-vehicle scores notably differed from their used numbers . Mercedes-Benz ranked 29th for new-car reliability, but its used scores pushed it into 10th place.

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