The IEA in 2012 and the outlook for the next two years

The main goal of the institute's current administration is to enhance the position of the IEA as a benchmark for advanced studies, as a platform for institutional critique, and thus as a strategic place to discuss the future of the University of São Paulo. This is what Martin Grossmann, director of the Institute, stated in a lecture to participants of the internal workshop IEA: Present and Future, held on December 12.

The event brought together coordinators of the research groups, representatives from the São Carlos and Ribeirão Preto hubs, and IEA staff. In the morning session, the director gave an account of what was achieved in 2012 to consolidate the 2012-2017 Management Project and offered an outlook of the future. In the afternoon, the coordinators took stock of their groups' activities during the year and presented goals and plans for the next two years.

PRESENT
Three achievements of the IEA in 2012 were highlighted: the improvement of the institute's information and communication infrastructure, more evolved relationships with USP's decision-makers, and the ongoing development of the metacuratorships.

Regarding the improved infrastructure, he emphasized the institute's new website — online since January 2013 – as one of the year's greatest accomplishments. With decentralized management of content, the site is now more compatible with the IEA'S strategic and pioneering stance. The way we appeared on the internet did not present us as the center of reference that we are," the director said.

In addition to the website, Grossmann called attention to two other developments: the acquisition of new equipment and the connection of the IEA to the Internet 2, currently underway. With this new, improved access to the world network, connection speed will increase considerably, making it possible to transmit high-quality images and sound, as well as enabling new technological horizons such as virtual meetings through telepresence — a more advanced system of videoconferencing that offers, among other things, the ability to simulate the real presence of remote participants.

The director also emphasized the importance of his meetings with representatives from the university decision-making bodies — the Dean’s office, assistant deanships, executive deanships and superintendencies — to present the new management project and the requirements of the IEA. At the meetings, he was able "to reinforce that the IEA is not independent, but rather autonomous and different from other integrating institutes and agencies of the university".

As he concluded his assessment, Grossman talked about the process of structuring the metacuratorships, which will organize the IEA's research activities around four main pivots (Abstraction, Commons, Transformational and Glocal), collectively led by an interdisciplinary group of researchers.

Thus far, the most developed metacuratorhip is Abstraction, which already has four curators: professor Mahir Saleh Hussein (from USP's Institute of Physics and coordinator of the IEA's Unconventional Nuclear Astrophysics Research Group) and three professors from USP units in São Carlos: Hamilton Brandão Varela de Albuquerque (Institute of Chemistry), David Moreno Sperling (Institute of Architecture and Urbanism), and Washington Luiz Marar (Institute of Mathematical and Computer Sciences).

FUTURE
The workshop presented two new formats to carry out research at the IEA in 2013: study groups and laboratories. The study groups, more flexible than the research groups, will host embryonic and empirical interdisciplinary projects, and may be composed of students, members from the civil society, and both novice and vastly experienced professors. The laboratories, which are also interdisciplinary, will discuss institutional issues related to the management project or to specific matters of interest to the institute and the university.

The director also mentioned that, as of next year, the IEA will be able to rely on the collaboration of both a resident designer — who will be responsible not only for the institute's visual identity and its applications, but also for addressing contemporary design-related issues — and a specialist in institutional memory, who will be in charge of recovering the past and organizing information related to the present and the future.

Still with regard to future projects, Grossman presented two proposals (to be discussed with the university's central management) to expand the staff of the IEA. One is the adoption of a resolution allowing the IEA to select and hire visiting professors from Brazil and abroad, giving more autonomy to the Institute and meeting the peculiarities of its work.

The other proposal is the establishment of a sabbatical program for faculty of the University of São Paulo, who would stay for six months or one year at the IEA to develop a research project, write a book or carry out other interdisciplinary activities related to their field.

Concluding his report on the goals for 2013/2014, the director said there is a chance that the IEA will contribute to develop a graduate program on the Amazon region.

Internationalization
Grossman specifically emphasized the role of the IEA in the Steering Committee of the Ubias, the international network of university-based institutes for advanced study. In 2013, in addition to attending the next meeting of Ubias directors, to be held in Jerusalem (Israel), the IEA will take part in the thematic organization of the international conference on knowledge that will take place in Vancouver (Canada).

In 2014, the IEA and its counterpart at the University of Nagoya (Japan) will organize a pilot project for Ubias’ Intercontinental Academy. This project will bring together around 15 outstanding young researchers who will work together under the supervision of three internationally renowned scientists. The group will work for one month in São Paulo and for an equivalent period in Nagoya.

Groups and journal
Reports from the board of directors, the coordinators of the research groups and representatives from the São Carlos and Ribeirão Preto hubs revealed the intense activity of the Institute in 2012.

The IEA held 83 public events during the year, 65 organized by the groups and 19 by the directors. Some of them were developed in partnership with other units of the University of São Paulo and with outside institutions. The São Carlos and Ribeirão Preto hubs, in turn, held 24 and 19 public events, respectively.

In addition, two books were published and an e-book was produced by researchers associated with the IEA, and a visiting professor sojourned at the Institute and organized a cycle of two seminars and a roundtable.

To this must be added three editions of the Estudos Avançados journal, which celebrated in December 25 years of uninterrupted existence and will soon reach the landmark of 20 million hits at SciELO. The dossiers of issues 74, 75 and 76 were, respectively: Sustainability; New Developmentismt and Hope Sociology; and Literary Translation.

It is expected that these numbers on the Institute's production will increase substantially in 2013. Several national and international events are already planned. In addition, four books are to be published by the research groups, while visiting professors will be coming from different countries throughout the year.

Also with regard to publications, in addition to the three editions of the Estudos Avançados journal in 2013 and the four books of the research groups, the institute's new website will certainly offer a greater number of texts, including other contents produced over the history of the IEA and that will be recovered.