FAPESP Week

The symposium commemorates the 50th anniversary of FAPESP, a public taxpayer-funded foundation with the mission of supporting research in all fields of knowledge within the state of São Paulo, Brazil. FAPESP receives 20,000 research proposals each year and grants funding through a rigorous peer-reviewing system. In 2010 FAPESP awarded more than 5,000 research grants and paid fellowships for 11,000 students and post-doctoral researchers.

FAPESP invested R$ 780 million (approximately US$ 500 million) in research projects in 2010. One third of this value went to fellowships for graduate and undergraduate students. About 55% went to exploratory academic research, mostly fundamental in nature. The remaining 10% was invested in application-oriented research, in many cases carried out by small businesses or in joint research between academia and industry.

The percentage invested in applied research has been growing in recent years, consistent with the foundation’s mandate to foster scientific and technological development in the State of São Paulo.


About FAPESP

The São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) a public taxpayer-funded foundation with the mission of supporting research in all fields of knowledge within the state of São Paulo. São Paulo has a population of forty million and generates 35% of Brazil’s GDP. Under the state constitution 1% of all state taxes are appropriated to fund the foundation. The stability of the funding and the autonomy of the foundation allow for efficient management of the resources, having a sizable impact: while São Paulo is home to 22% of the Brazilian population and 30% of all scientists holding a doctorate in the nation, the state responds for 52% of the scientific articles published in international journals coming out of Brazil.

The foundation works in close contact with the scientific community: all proposals are peer reviewed with the help of panels composed of active researchers from the specific area. Many times scientists in São Paulo submit proposals for programs to the foundation which are carefully analyzed and, if deemed strong in academic terms, are shaped by the foundation into research programs that will constitute a set of related research projects in a given area. Since FAPESP’s mandate of the is to foster research and scientific and technological development in the state, ideas for programs that couple world class research with contributions that will impact social problems are welcome. The foundation supports large research programs in biodiversity and in information technology. In 2008 the foundation announced broad research initiatives on Bioenergy and Global Climate Change.

FAPESP invested R$ 780 million (approximately US$ 500 million) in research projects in 2010. One third of this value went to fellowships for graduate and undergraduate students. About 55% went to exploratory academic research, mostly fundamental in nature. The remaining 10% was invested in application-oriented research, in many cases carried out by small businesses or in joint research between academia and industry. The percentage invested in applied research has been growing in recent years, consistent with the foundation’s mandate to foster scientific and technological development in the State of São Paulo.

FAPESP has cooperation agreements with national and international research funding agencies, higher education and research institutions and business enterprises in many countries. In the United Kingdom, the foundation maintains, among others, agreements with Research Councils UK, the British Council, King’s College London and the universities of Surrey, Southampton, Nottingham and Birmingham. In the U.S., FAPESP has recently signed agreements with the National Science Foundation’s ICC and Dimensions on Biodiversity programs. The foundation also has an ongoing exchange program for undergraduates in Chemistry, funded in the U.S. through NSF’s PIRE, as well as longstanding cooperation with Microsoft Research.

More about FAPESP’s international collaboration initiatives and other information is available at: www.fapesp.br/en.