Oulu and Sao Paulo join research efforts on telecommunications and dentistry
Brazil has launched a programme called Science Without Borders to facilitate mobility and networking of researchers in order to internationalize Brazilian R&D-activities. From the University of Oulu, two disciplines have been accepted to participate: Communications Engineering and Dentistry.
In the picture: Matti Latva-aho (left), Leo Tjäderhane, Tuula Salo, Carolina Bitu and Pedro Nardelli advance the research cooperation between the University of Oulu and Brazil. Picture: Tuomo Hänninen
The Department of Communications Engineering with its research unit CWC (Centre of Wireless Communications) has a long history of joint research operations and student exchange with Brazil. At the moment, there are three Brazilians working as doctoral students under Head of Department, Professor Matti Latva-aho.
Almost for a decade already, the two University of Oulu professors of Dentistry, Tuula Salo (professor of oral pathology) and Leo Tjäderhane (professor of cariology and endodontics), have built up their cooperation network in Brazil.
Currently professor Salo is a visiting professor of the Graduation Program of Oral Medicine and Oral Pathology at Piracicaba Dental School, Campinas State University UNICAMP. Her research group has included two Brazilian PhD students, and for a year and half there has been one post doc from Brazil.
Professor Tjäderhane has worked with researchers from several Brazilian universities, and has hosted five PhD students in Finland. His Science Without Borders -programme involves the Sao Paulo – University Bauru School of Dentistry.
The professors from Oulu will get the official status of Special Visiting Researcher in their Brazilian partner institutions.
“Both Piracicaba and Bauru Dental Schools have repeatedly scored as the two best dental schools (out of more than 200) in national evaluations”, ranks Professor Salo.
What brings these two disciplines together is a Brazilian couple living in Oulu, Pedro Nardelli who is finalizing his doctoral thesis at the Department of Communications Engineering, and his fiancée, post doc researcher at the Department of Diagnostics and Oral Medicine, Carolina Bitu.
“With the funding from Science Without Borders -programme the universities will be able to cover costs for the exchange of PhD students and post doc researchers, give out some travel grants and obtain project related material”, coordinating researchers Nardelli and Bitu are planning.
Finland is known as a country of high level knowledge in communications engineering. The joint project with Brazilian university focusses on applying wireless communications in transfer of energy (e.g. smart grids).
“Brazil is one of the most rapidly developing countries in the world and Sao Paulo is globally the ninth biggest economy. This cooperation gives us and our partners access to the strongest non-Asian or non-North-American region in the world”, says Professor Matti Latva-aho.
Simultaneously with the Science Without Borders -programme, a four-year research project SUSTAIN, jointly funded by the Academy of Finland and CNPq, has been launched between the University of Oulu Department of Communications Engineering and the School of Electric and Computer Engineering at State University of Campinas. Besides, a new joint call between Academy of Finland and FAPESP, the research funding organization of the Sao Paulo State, will be launched soon.
The Brazilian Science Without Borders program is a nationwide scholarship program that seeks to strengthen and expand Brazilian education in the areas of science, technology, innovation and competitiveness by providing opportunities for international studying to students and researchers. The program is a joint effort of the Brazilian Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Science and Technology, through their respective funding agencies, CAPES and CNPq. The goal is ambitious: to qualify 100,000 Brazilian students and researchers in top universities worldwide.
Eija Pajunen
