Wageningen University and Research centre will intensify its collaboration with Latin American knowledge institutes and private sector. Therefore they officially opened a new office at the University of São Paulo in Brazil on May 31st.
Wageningen UR has been active for decades in Latin American in joint research programmes and capacity building. Agreements for scientific co-operation have been signed in the past year with the governments of Brazil, Chile and Argentina, bringing a large number of PhD students to Wageningen. Through the new office, Wageningen UR plans to intensify existing cooperation and build new networks. Through the closer ties it expects to advance scientific research and its impact on society. Joining forces is regarded as essential to explore new approaches for society's problems regarding food security and quality, energy, climate change, degrading natural resources and sustainable agricultural development. The Netherlands’ alumni association in Brazil will support the office by installing new contacts and offer new ideas of collaboration.
Wageningen also thinks it will be better able to make use of certain funding possibilities such as the 7th Framework Programme of the EU. The intensified collaboration will lead to joint degrees with several universities, exchange visits of professors and researchers, and involving Latin American researchers on a more regular base in Wageningen research programmes. To enhance cooperation, Embrapa, Brazil’s largest research organisation in agriculture and environmental sciences, already opened an office in Wageningen last summer.
The office is located in Piracicaba, on the campus of Escola Superior de Agricultura "Louiz de Queiroz", part of the University of São Paulo. The director of the new office is Peter Zuurbier. Mr. Jos van de Vooren, presently Agricultural attaché at the Netherlands embassy in Brasília, will join the Wageningen UR Latin America office by September 1st.
The opening ceremony was officiated by Prof. Dr. Martin Kropff, Rector of Wageningen University and Prof. Dr. Roque Dechen, Dean of the University of Sao Paulo Campus ESALQ.