FAPESP

The São Paulo Research Foundation, FAPESP FAPESP is a public foundation, funded by the taxpayer in the State of São Paulo, with the mission to support research projects in higher education and research institutions, in all fields of knowledge. São Paulo has a population of forty million and generates 35% of Brazil’s GNP. The constitution of the State establishes that 1% of all state taxes belong to the foundation and the government transfers these funds monthly. The stability of the funding and the autonomy of the foundation allow for an efficient management of the resources that has had a sizable impact: while São Paulo has 22% of the Brazilian population and 30% of the scientists with a doctorate in the country, the state responds for 52% of the country’s scientific articles published in international journals.

The foundation works in close contact with the scientific community: all proposals are peer reviewed with the help of area panels composed of active researchers. Many times scientists in São Paulo bring proposals for programs to the Foundation, and these are carefully analyzed and, if deemed strong in academic terms, are shaped by the foundation into research programs that might congregate a set of research projects. Since the mandate of the foundation is to foster research and the scientific and technological development in the State, ideas for programs that match 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 on Global Climate Change.

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

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

FAPESP’s international collaboration initiatives and other information are detailed at www.fapesp.br/en.