14 November 2024 at 10:30 am
NZ forges fruitful partnership with Paraná state, Brazil’s education powerhouse
Academic cooperation between higher education and research institutions in Paraná state and New Zealand has been progressing steadily with reciprocal visits to New Zealand and Brazil recently.
Following a visit to New Zealand universities in September by a delegation of authorities from Paraná state, Brazil, the Latin America Centre of Asia-Pacific Excellence organised a reciprocal trip for a group of New Zealand educational representatives to go to Curitiba, Paraná’s capital city. The purpose of the visit was for the New Zealand delegation to get a closer look at the research structure of this southern Brazilian state and discuss future pathways for collaboration between Brazilian and New Zealand students and researchers.
The public higher education system of Paraná is made up of seven state universities and three federal institutions spread across several cities, with in-person and distance learning. They are quality research and teaching institutions, with substantial scientific production capacity and academic prestige. Paraná state has a population of roughly 11 million people.
New Zealand delegation meets with representatives of the State Secretariat for Science, Technology and Higher Education of Paraná and deans of state universities.
During the meetings in the capital of Paraná, held in mid-October, there were several discussions with deans and vice-deans of state universities, representatives of the State Secretariat for Science, Technology and Higher Education and the Araucária Foundation, a state-funded institution that focuses on promoting high-level scientific research.
New Zealand delegation at the Araucária Foundation, which funds scientific research
The meetings were attended by Secretary Aldo Nelson Bona and his team; market development manager of Education New Zealand Manapou ki te Ao (ENZ) in Brazil, Bruna de Natale; Nicole Freeman, from the Latin America Centre of Asia-Pacific Excellence; as well as representatives from 3 of the 8 New Zealand universities: Frank Bloomfield, from The University of Auckland, Leonel Alvarado, from Massey University and Jannik Haas, from the University of Canterbury.
Frank Bloomfield is deputy Vice-Chancellor, Research and Innovation at the University of Auckland. During the visit he highlighted the importance of collaborating internationally with other universities to undertake research and how one cannot conduct research in your own country alone.
"I’ve had the pleasure of leading two delegations to Brazil this year. Firstly, in April for the Faubai conference, when we also had the opportunity to talk to some professors from leading Brazilian universities. And now this visit.
“Despite our differing geographic and population sizes, the research priorities of our countries are very similar. We have heard from our colleagues here in Brazil that we have similar priorities but also similar problems,” said Frank.
“An example of this is in agriculture and how we need to think about using new techniques and new technologies such as genomics to improve our productivity in agriculture. This also applies to a whole host of different areas in which our priorities are similar including freshwater and culture, engineering, and chemical sciences, for example,” added Frank.”
