Chronobiologist Till Roenneberg talked about interdisciplinarity and the humanities on July 19

"Certain issues in the academic environment must be considered when we think about promoting interdisciplinarity. There is a political decision to be taken by development agencies. We need to finance those wishing to work with those who do not belong to the natural sciences. Hence we will have a new world." The comment by chronobiologist Till Roenneberg closed the conference Why Science needs more than Interdisciplinarity, held by the IEA on July 19.

Trained in medicine, biology and physics, Roenneberg has shown his concern when talking about the lack of communication and mutual understanding between the natural sciences and the humanities. "All the resentment and arrogance among disciplines have only brought confusion. We know we should start talking. Philosophy and science were together in the beginning but then split apart. We must go back to the beginning, to the basic questions," he said. "We only know ourselves from criticism by others. So if we get rid of the human sciences, as many universities are doing, natural scientists will increase the ignorance of what they are doing."

Roenneberg lamented the fact that many humanists have no knowledge about crucial issues of biology, such as advances in molecular biology or the evolution of living beings. "Unfortunately, without a minimum knowledge about the importance of all this one can not build criticism about it. The biological sciences dominate science today and, therefore, we must understand this field if we want to put their scientists where they should be," he said.

"We need the humanities back into the science boat, but not in the way as it is currently happening. It has to be more communicative and more critical regarding other areas.“ Roenneberg, a professor and vice-president of the Institute of Medical Psychology at Ludwig-Maximilians University (LMU), said that the term 'interdisciplinarity' has not been used properly.

Atomium, in Brussels. The structure is analogous to the interdisciplinarity as practiced in science, says the scientist

"The word reminds me of the Atomium in Brussels, where the spheres are connected to each other but nothing happens. It is as if we were hand in hand without getting anywhere. I like to think of interdisciplinarity when I think of what bacteria do. They exchange information and actually become infected. We have to change this word if we expect something more from interdisciplinarity. We have to think of a fusion of different kinds of knowledge," he said.

But the proposed fusion would not mean the abandonment of disciplinary fields. "It is not possible for everyone to be purely interdisciplinary, as this would result in bad science. I believe that everyone should have their specialties but also learn to understand and interact with other fields," he said.

Roenneberg is a disciple of physicist, biologist and physiologist Jürgen Walther Ludwig Aschoff (1913 - 1998), one of the founders of chronobiology, which studies the circadian rhythm, also called biological clock or circadian cycle. It is the period of about 24 hours which the life cycle of almost all living beings is based on. So it is a cycle influenced by variations of light, temperature, tides and winds between day and night.

The professor has spent two weeks in Brazil developing activities related to research on the quality of sleep in quilombolas. The studies should cover remote communities in several states. The aim is to deepen the findings on the influence of the external environment and artificial light on sleep quality.

According to the scientist, the modern man lives with little light during the day by getting locked in offices and is exposed to many stimuli at night due to artificial light. This not only changes the quality of sleep but also produces what he calls "social jet lag", or a physical and mental strain caused by the disagreement between the biological clock and the social clock. Sleep disorders are responsible for most of the diseases of modernity. "People smoke more, drink more coffee, suffer more from depression, anxiety, metabolic problems and diabetes," he said.

On science, gender and brain

Audience at the conference Why Science needs more than Interdisciplinary

Roenneberg resumed the topics discussed during the workshops In Search of Interdisciplinary Dialogue, held by the Waseda Institute for Advanced Studies (WIAS) at Waseda University on March 14, during the second phase of the Intercontinental Academia.

He noted that regardless of the "knowledge box" or area that we deal with the entire academic enterprise relates to human beings. On the one hand we have the Holocaust, the atomic bomb, Fukushima, the terrorist events of 2011, while on the other hand there is penicillin, the abolition of slavery, equal rights, photovoltaic cells, immunization. In short, the good and the bad. "So all the products of each one of the disciplines we know will impact humans. So science must always be attentive to the direction it is taking and it seems that lately we have not given due attention to this," he said.

To understand the phenomena produced by science requires a kind of thinking "outside the box", he said. "What is central in everything we do is our brain. He is the microscope, the principle of our thinking. The world is full of data and everything is processed in our brain according to our personal experiences. The reflection on the future of science leads to questions about the actors that drive science. The understanding of the world is done by the brain and science is dominated by male brains."

The issue of gender and equity is relevant because all science, in general, has been done by men, he said. "And men like big and expensive toys. Perhaps this explains our tendency to invest in large, expensive machines. But this way we will produce more and more data we are not yet able to analyze properly. Therefore, we should invest in young brains capable of inventing algorithms and intelligent mathematical strategies that allow us to analyze gene networks, brain cell networks or other interactive elements. The brain is the most interactive instrument that exists," he said.

Roenneberg compared the Brazilian behaviour with the attitude of scientists who insist on staying in their comfort zone. "I do not understand why this huge country refuses to speak English. I went to a big bank and had difficulties because not even the manager spoke English. Many do know but are shy or do not want to leave the comfort zone because it generates anguish. People in general and scientists need to leave the comfort zone and dare to make mistakes," he said.

The event will be broadcast live over the web.

During the meeting, journalists Mônica Teixeira and Hérika Dias will discuss how the knowledge produced by the University is passed on to society and how we can broaden the dissemination of research produced at USP. Mediation will be in charge of professor Mario Salerno, from the USP's Polytechnic School (POLI) and coordinator of the OIC.

Only in 2014, the USP's Theses and Dissertations database registered 5,393 researches. The University of São Paulo accounts for approximately 25% of the scientific production in Brazil, according to the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP).

The conferencists

Monica Teixeira is the director and presenter of the Virtual University of São Paulo (UNIVESP), in charge of the implementation of the scientific dissemination programme at USP.

Hérika Dias is a journalist of the USP News Agency, focused on the dissemination of the University's research.

According to Till Roenneberg, "we are loosing our critical view into how we make science.”

LIVE ON WEB

"It seems like they are trying to eliminate the humanities because there is an idea that apparently this field does not bring much money or many students to the institutions. This is the worst direction we could take. There is a crisis in the way we deal with the humanities and we should change it."

The quote by chronobiologist Till Roenneberg seeded his conference on interdisciplinarity given at the Waseda Institute for Advanced Studies (WIAS) during the 1st Intercontinental Academia (ICA). The dialogue between different kinds of knowledge, or what academia calls interdisciplinarity, will be the topic discussed by Roenneberg on July 19, in the IEA Events Room, from 10 am.

Invited by the IEA to revisit the presentation of the ICA, the scientist from the Institute of Medical Psychology at Ludwig-Maximilians University (LMU) will give the conference Why Science needs more than Interdisciplinarity. The event will be broadcast live on the web.

The IEA, an interdisciplinary body par excellence, is revisiting the issue of interdisciplinarity from meetings with renowned experts. German sociologist Peter Weingart, board member and director of the Bielefeld University's Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF), has shown that the achievement of interdisciplinary model will only be effective through an institutional restructuring in teaching and research institutions. Despite being fashionable in academia for over 20 years, interdisciplinarity was still a concept "empty of meaning" until recently, he said during his lecture at the IEA.

In Roenneberg's vision, science needs more than interdisciplinarity. "Modern science uses objective methods and criteria to find the ‘true’ mechanistic causes behind observed associations. While we have made great advances in explaining extended putative causal networks, we are loosing our critical view into how we do this," he says.

For the scientist, not biological dogmas or physical theories, not genes or quarks are at the centre of our scientific endeavours. "Only one thing is the central commonality of every scientific discovery: our own brain, which is basically a story-telling machine," he says.

At this meeting, Roenneberg will remember the necessity that we have to fuse as many different brains as possible to make larger jumps in our scientific insights.

The conferencist

Till Roenneberg is a professor of chronobiology at the Institute of Medical Psychology at Ludwig-Maximilians University (LMU) in München, Germany. He explores the impact of light on human circadian rhythms, focusing on aspects such as chronotypes and social jet lag in relation to health benefits. Roenneberg attended both the University College London and LMU, where he began by studying physics. He switched to medicine in order to focus on the science of the human body, but ended up studying biology. As a postdoctoral fellow, he studied again under Jurgen Aschoff, studying annual rhythms in the body, then moved to the United States to study the cellular basis of biological clocks under Woody Hastings at Harvard University. In 1991, he began the tradition of giving the Aschoff’s Ruler prize to a chronobiologist who has advanced the field. He is currently the vice-chair of the Institute for Medical Psychology of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, the head of the Centre for Chronobiology, the president-elect of the European Biological Rhythms Society, the president of the World Federation of Societies for Chronobiology, and a member of the Senior Common Room of Brasenose College, University of Oxford. From 2005 to 2010 he was the coordinator of "EUCLOCK" and coordinator of the Daimler-Benz-Foundation network "ClockWORK", and from 2010 to 2012 was the member at large of the Society for Research of Biological Rhythms.

The audience sees only the spectacle provided by Olympic athletes and ends up having a distorted view of the life they experience. The pictured day-to-day glamor with mishaps is not the reality, according to Professor Katia Rubio, from USP's School of Physical Education and Sport (EEFE), and a participant in the 2nd edition of the IEA Sabbatical Year Program.

'The professional athlete of today is a nomad who goes where there are job offers and these displacements affect their identity,' says Rubio, who is developing the research project 'The Influence of National Displacements and Transnational Migration in the Formation of the Identity of Brazilian Olympic Athletes.'

The corpus of the research is the more than 1,300 biographical narratives of Brazilian athletes that participated in the Olympic Games from 1948 to 2016, a material produced by the researcher in the last 17 years.

Public policies

Rubio's perspective is that her research becomes a contribution to the generation of public policies in support of athletes. One of them would be professional regulation: 'But it will have to be a differentiated policy, even in terms of retirement, because the athletes have a much shorter professional life than other workers. In addition, they often begin their career before the age that is determined as the minimum for the work of minors.'

Another outcome of Rubio's research will be the production of subsidies for the academic and applied works of the specialists that accompany the trajectory of an athlete, which in the case of psychologists, physicians, physiotherapists, nutritionists, social service staff ('mainly for the youth system'), anthropologists and sociologists.

She believes that the work can also provide indications for the full preparation of athletes, something 'already existing in some training clubs that are concerned in providing athletes with information about the world they are facing.'

Katia Rubio

The institutional structure of sport also profoundly affects athletes, according to Rubio. 'The dedication to sport is born as an activity of the individual, but then they must submit to the hierarchical structure of the country, from the need to be linked to a club to playing regional tournaments for their city and achieving the national team, which participate in international tournaments.'

She compares this situation to 'an iron ball attached to the athlete's foot,' so that from the moment they enter the system 'they lose freedom to move as a citizen the way they would like to.'

Professionalization

With professionalization in the 1980s, sport has become a transnational labor market like few others, says Rubio. 'It does not matter what language the athlete speaks. What is expected of them is that they will train, compete and be champions.' That has completely changed the dynamics of the Olympic sport, she says.

'While developing my research, I will analyze the whole process of these individuals that leave their place of origin, become citizens of the world and at the same time lose the reference of themselves during the numerous processes of displacement.'

Even the speed of travel today affects the athlete's life: 'Today, when it is possible to be on the other side of the world within 36 hours, the athletes do not experience the displacements as in the past. They do not have time to adapt to new places and cultures. They get there and start training, spending six to eight hours on it. Another eight hours remain for a social life that some of them are not able to develop. Some try to learn the language and get cultural information, making a minimum adjustment to food and climate. Others simply go without any previous preparation.'

Rubio points out that one thing is the athlete's desire to live this life. Another is when they realize that the level of expectation about that desire is much greater than the harshness of life in the place where they went to. 'It is not uncommon to know about an athlete who is an idol in Brazil becoming an outcast when going abroad, and ending up not meeting expectations. This turns into a snowball that affects them deeply.'

Photos (from the top): Danilo Borges/ME; Leonor Calasans/IEA-USP

Some foreign universities have adopted new organizational frameworks to meet the peculiarities of interdisciplinary research. More than necessary, this restructuring is essential to consolidate the interdisciplinary model, according to the German sociologist Peter Weingart.

Weingart is an adviser and former director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF, in the German acronym) at Bielefeld University (Germany). The ZiF is a partner of the IEA in the Ubias network (University-Based Institutes for Advanced Study).

For him, in addition to adopting new ways to organize scholars, disciplines and teaching & research units, interdisciplinarity requires a solid epistemological foundation: “Without the good internal reasons pertaining to the development of science and without a willingness to deal with problems outside specific areas, it will not succeed.”

Weingart made these remarks at the conference Interdisciplinarity and the New Governance of Universities he gave at the IEA on July 28.

For him, “interdisciplinarity has been fashionable in academia for more than 20 years, with research development agencies in every country advocating it as a goal to be achieved; until recently, however, the term was devoid of meaning.”

Kinds of interdisciplinarity and ways to achieve it

Weingart said that during his term at the helm of the ZiF (1989-1994), the Center classified interdisciplinary relations into two types: small – when, for example, mathematicians and physicists get together, because “they can understand each other rather easily” – and large, as when a biologist and a sociologist discuss the biological foundations of culture and must overcome greater differences between their disciplines.

He also sees two ways that interdisciplinarity can be achieved. One is through the combination of disciplines, resulting in areas such as biophysics. “However, it does not take long for the new area to become a new major field, with the same dynamics and traditional format of a discipline, namely, ‘turf’ protection, demarcation of outside areas and internalization of communication, characterized by the interaction of peers with similar ideas and attitudes.”

The other way of achieving interdisciplinarity is “driven by a demand, often political, from outside the disciplines.” An example is environmental research, which according Weingart “has yet to succeed in becoming a discipline, because it is made up of a conglomerate of different disciplines cooperating among themselves.”

According to the sociologist, these two types of interdisciplinarity may face resistance in universities from well-established departments with whom it competes for funds. “Departments are interest groups and, of course, the strongest ones claim that only they are able to judge the quality and competence of scholars enrolling in the units and institutes of a university.”

Experiences

Weingart mentioned the University of Siegen (Germany) as an example of an institution that is striving to move away from departmental model and pursue interdisciplinarity. He acknowledges, however, that the case in point is not really persuasive, because it is a small and somewhat obscure university.

“The university regrouped its 12 departments into four faculties that, although maintaining the structure of disciplines, work on issues that arise from outside themselves.”

A more radical example mentioned by Weingart is Arizona State University (United States): “Because this university cannot join the elite echelon of American institutions, president Michael Crow decided to follow a different path and adopt a strategy he calls ‘scientific entrepreneurship’: he dissolved all the departments and created a completely new, interdisciplinary mix between the areas.”

Public demand

Weingart stressed that the euphoria over interdisciplinary research can also be justified politically, with research responding to issues external to the university, fulfilling public demands and being accountable to taxpayers. “It’s best that science do things that are valued by society rather that doing only what is valued by scientists,” he added.

Even with all the changes toward interdisciplinarity, he warns that “the democratization of science is not something that will abolish the trend toward specialization that we have witnessed over the last two centuries. The evolution of science depends on ever-increasing specialization and penetration, on plunging into unexplored territories, but the question we must ask is whether the model of disciplines, as created in the early 19^th century, herald the end of their own history or whether it is possible that something else replace them.”

Various questions from the audience have been made to Peter Weingart regarding his ideas

DEBATE

Weingart’s statements led to several questions from the audience in the IEA Event Room and from those who followed the conference via Internet.

The debate began with a question from IEA director Martin Grossmann, who asked the sociologist’s opinion regarding the role of institute of advanced studies (IAS) in expanding university interdisciplinarity.

Weingart said there are various ways to understand what IASs should do. One of them is that this kind of institute should promote a gathering of brilliant minds. For him, no one today still believes this is enough: “It’s great to have these people accomplishing things in the same place, but this only works to a certain point. Furthermore, it is a somewhat lavish solution, feasible only for those with large budgets; if you don’t have that kind of money, you’re better off considering systemic solutions.”

In his view, the first step towards establishing an IAS is to ensure that it has its own budget and research stations, with leeway to hire whoever it wants. With regard to their work properly, he believes these institutes should identify issues that cannot be studied in the departments, and also reflect on the relationship between scientific production and other spheres of social life.

The director of the University of São Paulo’s Institute of Biosciences, Gilberto Fernando Xavier, asked Weingart if the difficulty to establish interdisciplinary groups in a competitive environment was not more a sociological problem than an organizational one, “because to create such a group there has to be trust and a cooperative attitude among people.”

Weingart said this difficulty is not actually a sociological problem, but rather psychological: “Many academics are afraid and seek security; people like that are not good partners in groups, which require scholars resilient enough to sit down with someone and ask silly questions, because they know that silly questions need to be asked, that they need to learn, to start from scratch.”

Carlos Graeff Teixeira, from the School of Biosciences at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul, asked by e-mail how university administrators may identify relevant social programs and if special groups are needed to accomplish this task.

According to Weingart, there is a no recipe to identify societal problems that deserve to be studied, but that creating groups of social scientists dedicated to this work or seeking information from concerned people elsewhere may be one course of action.

Leandro Giatti, from the School of Public Health, said we live amidst uncertainties and that experts do not have all the answers. He asked Weingart whether society shouldn’t participate more in discussions by scientists on matters of great uncertainty.

According to Weingart, we must overcome the model in which politicians pose questions to scientists who are well informed on all the evidence and the issue is thereby resolved: “We know that public policy makers are very opportunistic with regard to scientific evidence, accepting what they like and discarding the rest; furthermore, there is no way eliminate insecurity from the process, leaving us the alternative of establishing mechanisms that reduce the risks of receiving information or that allow postponing decisions, in keeping with the principle of precaution.”

Marcos Buckeridge, from the Institute of Biosciences, asked Weingart whether the systems of a university need both interdisciplinary workgroups using systemic tools and, at the same time, individuals doing basic science by themselves, and whether it would not be the case to create better connections between basic science and the systemic view.

Weingart said that the notion of system is very different in each context and that a common ground – a prerequisite for interdisciplinary work – will always be at a level above two or three connected disciplines: “It will be a set of problems competing with each other or trying to fit the findings of what is above the disciplines.”

According to Buckeridge, the University of São Paulo has mechanisms for this, but there is the problem of different language between different areas and the consequent need for “translators” (not people, but mechanisms that facilitate understanding).

Weingart said that specialization is the touchstone and this implies highly specialized languages: “It would be impossible to use ‘translators’ to make each discipline translatable; the best would be for different disciplines to confront one specific problem with the help of one ‘translator’.” As an example of this “translation” work, Buckeridge mentioned the books on popular science that many American and British scientists produce. Weingart agreed that this is a possible mechanism.

Silvio Salinas, from USP’s Institute of Physics and former adviser to the IEA, said that departments in the University of São Paulo are strong, well-established and productive, and that he considers concern with the comprehensive training of undergraduate students more important.

Weingart said that with the expansion of the contents of disciplines it is impossible to know everything. In his view, curricula in every discipline are expanding and, therefore, “we need a constant process of rethinking the curricula and deciding which skills are absolutely crucial and which should be abandoned.”

During the debate, the director of USP’s School of Arts, Sciences and Humanities, Maria Cristina Motta de Toledo, who followed the event over the Internet, sent an invitation for Weingart to visit the school on his next trip to São Paulo. She said the school adopts an interdisciplinary, not departmental, approach to undergraduate studies, based on integrated subjects and activities, with the freshman year being a common basic cycle for all courses.

Photos: Leonor Calazans/IEA-USP

The 104th issue of the journal Estudos Avançados brings the centenary of the 1922 Modern Art Week, the role of research at universities, and the 60 years of the creation of the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) as its central themes. The digital version is available on the SciELO platform (Portuguese only).

The opening dossier, dedicated to the Modern Art Week, features articles that evaluate how timely this "complex and plural" movement still is, being "one of the most important movements in Brazilian culture," according to the publication's editor, Sérgio Adorno.

Regarding the landmark of the last century, "a lot has been written about the main events, the participants, the motivations, the reference works, the polemics that surrounded it, the noisy reception, and the nonconformity with the dominant traditionalism in the arts." Estudos Avançados, however, "did not intend to repeat what is already known, but to add new contributions," says Adorno.

In the article "Notes on Modernism," Eduardo Jardim exposes two different times in the 1920s as two ways of conceiving modernism between the incorporation of modern languages of European influence and the adoption of national traits in the art produced in the country.

The original myths about the rediscovery of Brazil and the resumption of colonial roots as achievements of modernism are themes present in the article "The Reinvention of the Week and the Myth of the Discovery of Brazil," by Rafael Cardoso. The author also brings up critical disputes around the Modern Art Week.

Further contributions explore Mário de Andrade's achievements in the movement, such as his way of thinking about Brazilian unity and the diversity of "Brazils." In this sense, the project of a country that invested in the ethnic and cultural mixture through art is analyzed. The article "Brazil and Mário de Andrade's Brazils: the End of the Apprentice Tourist?" points out how the country was questioned due to the need to determine cultural differences to face internal inequalities.

The dossier also has articles addressing similarities and differences between Argentine and Brazilian avant-gardes in the 1920s, and the importance of clothing for Brazilian modernism.

Research Universities

The articles in the second dossier address the contribution of universities and research to the country's development in several areas, a "current and inexhaustible" issue that "raises polemics and divergent positions," as Adorno states.

According to the article that opens the dossier, "Research and Graduate Studies in Brazil: Two Sides of the Same Coin?," written by Simon Schwartzman, the distribution profile of researchers and graduate courses in Brazil started to follow the profile of enrollment in undergraduate courses from the 2000s onwards. With an analysis of the characteristics of the system and the occupation of graduate students, the author concludes that the expansion of the research system responded to the demands for titling of higher education professors in detriment of the country's research priorities.

The second article ("The Abandonment of the 'University Spirit' in the Construction of the Armando de Sales Oliveira Campus") brings the history of the foundation and the fundamentals of USP, and considers the absence of a university spirit. It highlights the lack of an integrating environment in the project by not taking the academic aspect into account.

Closing the dossier, the article "The University as a Reliable Source for the Formulation and Improvement of Public Policies" evaluates the influence of USP on public policies. The analysis is based on the University's performance during the COVID-19 pandemic and its scientific production in various areas of knowledge during this period, which served as a source for the implementation and evaluation of public policies.

60 Years of FAPESP

To celebrate the 60th anniversary of the creation of the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP,) the journal features articles that address the solid role of the institution in proposing decisive strategies for the development of the country based on knowledge. Despite facing repeated threats to its assets and budget, the Foundation stands out in the articles for its budgetary and administrative management, and for the execution of its activities.

The list below contains the names of the authors who have contributed with each one of the addressed themes:

100 Years of the Modern Art Week

Eduardo Jardim
Rafael Cardoso
Pedro Duarte
Eduardo Coelho
Ivan Francisco Marques
Marcos Antônio de Moraes and Rodrigo de Albuquerque Marques
Gênese Andrade
Flávia Camargo Toni and Camila Fresca
Carolina Casarin
Carlos Sandroni

Research Universities

Simon Schwartzman
Caio Dantas
Vahan Agopyan and Glauco Arbix

60 Years of FAPESP

Marco A. Zago and José R. Drugowich de Felício
Jacques Marcovitch
Hernán Chaimovich

Deputy Sibá Machado, rapporteur of the project that gave rise to the Innovation Law

The seminar will examine the main aspects of the new law, exploring the perspectives of the main drivers for innovation and outlining the actions that should be undertaken to make the law to become effective.

The central exhibition will be made by deputy Sibá Machado, rapporteur of the project that gave rise to the law. The meeting will be opened by the FEA's director, Adalberto Américo Fischmann, and will feature the following speakers:

• José Eduardo Krieger, provost for research at the USP (institutional view);
• Helena Nader, president of the Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science (SBPC) (perspective of the scientific community);
• Paulo Mol, national superintendent of the Euvaldo Lodi Institute (IEL) of the National Industry Confederation (CNI) and coordinator of the Business Mobilization for Innovation (MEI) (perspective of the business community);
• Maria Paula Dallari Bucci, legal superintendent of the USP (initiatives for effectiveness).

Advancements

Just over a year the Boards of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate promulgated a constitutional amendment (Emenda Constitucional nº 85 - in Portuguese), amending and adding devices in the Federal Constitution to update the treatment of activities in science, technology and innovation. The amendment has lead to the final law project presented by various members of the Parliament in 2011 and resulted in the new innovation law, enacted on January 11 by President Dilma Rousseff.

The new law provides for incentives to scientific development, research, innovation, and scientific and technological capacity. It also amends several existing legal provisions, in particular Law No. 10.973 / 2004, known as the Innovation Law.

According to Professor Guilherme Ary Plonski, organizer of the seminar, these advancements in legislation are the result of a "laborious and tense" construction, to which numerous academic, business and government institutions have devoted their efforts over five years. He considers "particularly auspicious the fact that this work has made it to term even in this delicate national context."

The event is a partnership between the USP's Dean of Research, the IEA, the USP's Center for Policy and Technology Management (PGT), based on FEA, and the Centre for Research Innovation and Competitiveness Observatory (NAP- OIC), based on the IEA.

Photo: Gustavo Lima/Chamber of Deputies

Launched by the federal government on June 25, the National Program for Knowledge Platforms (PNPC) will enable the creation of public-private arrangements for the articulation of skills based on a scientific, technological and advanced innovative infrastructure, involving universities, research institutions and companies.

According to members of the government, these arrangements will be structured to solve major problems in Brazil and its definition will be guided by the country's strategic priority demand.

The Steering Committee of the program consists of the ministers of civil matters, finance, education, development, industry and foreign trade, planning, budget and management, and science, technology and innovation. Some of the goals of the initiative are to build 20 platforms of knowledge in ten years in areas such as agriculture, health, energy, aerospace, information technology and communications, and naval equipment, to increase investment in research and development to 2% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2020, to attract highly skilled professionals from abroad to work in sub-programs, and to provide special arrangement platforms for purchasing and contracting personnel.

To discuss the characteristics of the program and the expected effects of its deployment, IEA's Innovation and Competitiveness Observatory (OIC) Research Group will hold the seminar National Program for Knowledge Platforms on September 26 ,at 10 am, at USP's Polytechnic School (POLI). The presentation will be in charge of sociologist Glauco Arbix, President of FINEP (Financier of Studies and Projects) and professor at USP's Faculty of Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences (FFLCH). The panelists will be the Vice President of USP, Vahan Agopyan, the Provost for Research, José Eduardo Krieger, and Antonio Mauro Saraiva, a professor at POLI. Moderation will be in charge of Mario Salerno, coordinator of the reaearch group and professor at POLI.

STRATEGIC DEMANDS

According to Glauco Arbix, the government's concern is to prepare the groundwork for a leap in science and technology in Brazil. He stressed that "the assumption is that the country can no longer do more of the same. Technological development in universities and companies is working the wrong way: they present their projects and we advance if they move on, or if not we more or less remain at the same level or even move back."

According to the sociologist, the logic that guided the formulation of PNPC was to invert this process: "The government should publicly offer a strategic demand for the country, and consortia between companies, universities and research institutes are formed to fulfill this demand." This strategy "has nothing to do with an intention to direct science or constrain scientific research, limiting its creativity and innovation. On the contrary, it has to do with putting academic research and engineering linked to companies in tune with the country's effort to develop."

Arbix considers that the PNPC puts Brazil on the same level as the top countries in the world when it comes to this kind of research and development structure. According to him, the United States are building 45 platforms with the same spirit, the European Union is developing 60 centers of excellence in different countries and Korea has implemented similar experiences.

To the Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Clélio Campolina, the program is an opportunity to "articulate the country's education, science and technology for the development, making the connection between scientific knowledge and business base, with the mediation of development institutions and funding."

The event will be broadcast live on the web.

The second edition of the Intercontinental Academia has already defined subject matter, dates and venues. The project, in two stages, will study human dignity: the first stage, from March 6 through 20, 2016, will take place in Jerusalem; the second, from August 1 through 12, in Bielefeld. The event will be organized by the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies of the Hebrew University Jerusalem (IIAS) and the Zentrum für interdisziplinäre Forschung (Center for Interdisciplinary Research) at Bielefeld University.

Human dignity is the object of several research studies, in various disciplines, and will involve a debate on international terrorism, torture, civil war, data protection, poverty reduction and social security, minorities, and history of human rights, among others. During the conferences in Israel and Germany, participants will attend master classes with eminent scholars from these fields. Some lectures have already been defined: “The constitutional right to human dignity,” “Dignity as the core of human rights,” “Recognizing human dignity after its denial” and “Human dignity in religion.”

Confirmed speakers include Aleida Assmann, professor of English Literature at the University of Konstanz; Lynn A. Hunt, research professor and Eugen Weber endowed chair in Modern European History at the University of California; Gertrude Lübbe-Wolff, professor of Public Law at Bielefeld University and former justice of the German Federal Constitutional Court; Ralf Poscher, professor of Constitutional Law and Legal Philosophy at the University of Freiburg; and Mordechai Kremnitzer, the Bruce W. Wayne professor of International Law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and vice-president of research at the Israel Democracy Institute.

The Intercontinental Academia is an initiative of the UBIAS network, an international association that connects 34 university-based institutes for advanced study from 19 countries, and aims to promote networked research and develop new leaders. The first edition of the Academia, which discussed “Time,” is being organized by the Institute of Advanced Studies of the University of São Paulo (IEA-USP) and the Institute for Advanced Research at the Nagoya University. The first part was held in São Paulo from April 17 through 29 and the second is scheduled for March 2016, in Nagoya. Read about the São Paulo conferences here. Learn more about the project at <http://intercontinental-academia.ubias.net/>.

Registration

Young researchers wishing to take part in the Intercontinental Academia conferences on human dignity must undergo a careful selection process. Candidates may come from areas such as Law, Political Science, Sociology, Political Theory, History, Philosophy, Computer Science, Education, Cultural Studies, Literary Studies, Biology or Biogenetics. Participants must have reached the final phase of their PhD or post-doctoral work, and be fluent in English.

Candidates must present a cover letter on how they may contribute to the project, an updated résumé, and a letter of recommendation from an institute of advanced studies of the UBIAS network. In addition, they should provide a document summarizing their interest in the subject matter and their expectations for the project. Submissions should be made by e-mail (ica-jerusalem-bielefeld@uni-bielefeld.de) by August 31.

Fifteen participants will be selected at the end of the process. Part of the costs of accommodation and travel will be reimbursed.

Additional information about the second stage of the project is available at the website of the UBIAS network.

The Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to the inventors of the LED (light-emitting diode) lamp: Isamu Akasaki and Hiroshi Amano, both from the Nagoya University, and Shuji Nakamura, from the University of California Santa Barbara. The winners were announced in the morning of this Tuesday 10/7 in Stockholm, at the headquarters of the Nobel Foundation.

The Nobel Committee has justified the award to the three scientists for having invented the "efficient blue light-emitting diodes, which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources." According to the committee, LEDs are the light source of the 21st century, as the incandescent bulbs were in the 20th century.

The researchers will share a prize of $ 1.1 million, to be awarded in Stockholm on December 10.

The IEA-USP is honored to disclose this award since the Nagoya University, through its Institute for Advanced Research (IAR), of which Akasaki is a member, is a partner of the Brazilian Institute in the Intercontinental Academia project. The pilot edition of the interinstitutional initiative will bring together young researchers from various countries for an interdisciplinary research on time in 2015.

With the granting of the Nobel Prize to Akasaki and Amano, Nagoya University now has six winners of the award. The other four are Makoto Kobayashi (Nobel Prize in Physics in 2008), Toshihide Maskawa (Nobel Prize in Physics in 2008), Osamu Shimomura (Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2008) and Ryoji Noyori (Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2001).

These scientists (except for Amano) and seven other renowned scientists make up the Academia of the IAR. According to the website of the institute, "the Academy is composed by the 'scholars' that the university is most proud of, and who provide guidance and suggestions for the advancement of academic activities of the university, in addition to transmitting through the excellence of their work the essence of academic research to young researchers and graduate students.

Photos: Nagoya University and University of California Santa Barbara

Arturo Forner-Cordero Forner-Cordero is a professor at the Department of Mechatronic Engineering and Mechanical Systems, linked to the EP, where he started teaching in 2002. He holds a bachelor's degree in engineering from Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, and holds a PhD in biomechanics from the University of Twente. Later, he became a master in neurosciences and behavioral biology from Universidad Pablo de Olavide. He has carried out postdoctoral research at the Catholic University of Leuven.

MODELING OF THE BIOLOGICAL MOTOR CONTROL

Arturo Forner-Cordero, a professor at USP's Polytechnic School (EP), will develop the project "Modeling of the Biological Motor Control System from Engineering" for six months.

Forner-Cordero explains that there have been great advances in the study of biological movement control thanks to studies from the points of view of biology, medicine and psychology, with the addition of mathematical and engineering approaches. His project starts from a general question: how does the human nervous system plan, code and control movement? The intention is to clarify the principles of motor control and to propose models that consider important aspects of biological movement, such as variability, learning, adaptability and robustness.

"Current models of motor control, however, still present some limitations, both in the ability to explain biological phenomena and in possible applications in robotics or rehabilitation," says the researcher.

He believes that the modeling predicted in his study may have applications in different disciplines. One of them would be to assist in the evaluation, diagnosis and prediction of the evolution of neuromuscular diseases, allowing the choice of more efficient therapies. Another possibility of therapeutic use would be in the area of rehabilitation robotics and optimization of auxiliary mechanisms for assistance to the disabled.

Control engineering and robotics based on biomimetic design can also benefit from the study by incorporating the robustness and adaptability of biological motor control, according to Forner-Cordero.

Rogério Bastos Arantes Arantes has been a professor at FFLCH's Department of Political Science since 2008. He graduated in social sciences, and became a master and a doctor in political science at the same faculty. He focuses on the study of political institutions, with emphasis on constitutionalism and democracy in a comparative perspective; law and justice; Brazilian political system; institutions (Judiciary, Public Prosecutor's Office and Federal Police). He was a professor at PUC-SP, a researcher at the Institute of Economic, Social and Political Studies of São Paulo (IDESP,) and coordinator of the Post-Graduation Program in Political Science at USP. He is the author of "Judiciary and Politics in Brazil" (1997) and "Public Prosecutor's Office and Politics in Brazil" (2002).

POLITICAL CORRUPTION AND ORGANIZED CRIME

Rogério Bastos Arantes, from USP's Faculty of Philosophy, Languages and Literature, and Human Sciences (FFLCH), will develop the project "Political Corruption and Organized Crime in Brazil."

Through the analysis of operations conducted by the Federal Police and the Public Prosecutor's Office from 2003 to 2017, Arantes intends to achieve two main objectives. One of them is to map political corruption and organized crime in Brazil from the elements provided by more than three thousand operations triggered in the period. "Such mapping may result in a new empirical typology of the activities that are most subject to political corruption and organized crime in the country."

Another goal is to analyze the performance of the main institutions involved in combating these criminal activities, especially the Public Prosecutor's Office, the Federal Police, and the federal courts. "As constituent poles of the criminal justice system responsible for investigating and prosecuting crimes, these institutions have undergone significant displacements that have reshaped criminal jurisdiction related to political corruption and organized crime," according to Arantes.

The first objective will result in "the most extensive and comprehensive picture of organized criminal activity in the country, especially political corruption," says the researcher. The second one will provide knowledge about the institutional and organizational bases of the control and justice agencies, he adds. "On the whole, the research project will require an interdisciplinary approach, mobilizing the areas of political science and law," says Arantes.

Eduardo Benedicto Ottoni A professor at the Department of Experimental Psychology at the IP, Ottoni has graduated in biological sciences, and became a master, a doctor and a lecturer in experimental psychology at USP. He has been a visiting professor at the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA) and at the University of Kyoto. He has authored 58 articles in specialized journals and chapters in eight books. He has supervised nine doctoral theses and 15 master's theses.

EVOLUTIONISM AND CULTURE

"Evolutionary Approaches to Culture" is the theme of the research project to be developed by Eduardo Benedicto Ottoni, from USP's Institute of Psychology (IP), during his one-year stay at the IEA.

In studies on the use of tools by robust capuchin monkeys, Ottoni has investigated the role of social influences in the choices of different groups of these primates.

According to him, in some cases, the choices are "difficult to explain in terms of differences between habitats or genetic nature."

This perspective of understanding the peculiar behavioral repertoires to each population as "cultural" is part of a scenario that involves, among other things, "a proposal to reconsider the place of culture in evolutionary theory."

He points out that in recent years there has been increasing consistency, visibility and relevance in the debate to overcome the epistemological barriers between an evolutionary model that relegates cultural phenomena to a "proximal role ('extended phenotype')" and visions of culture as an "exclusively human process relatively disconnected from the evolutionary biology of the species."

José Renato de Campos Araújo In addition to being a professor at EACH's Public Policy Management Course, Araújo is a researcher at the Interdisciplinary Observatory for Public Policy at the same unit, where he develops the project of his sabbatical leave at the IEA. He has been a researcher at the Institute of Economic, Social and Political Studies of São Paulo (IDESP,) and of UNICAMP's Center for Population Studies (NEPO.) He was also a researcher at the José María Luis Mora Research Institute in Mexico City through the Sérgio Buarque de Holanda Chair. He holds a master's degree in sociology and a PhD in social sciences from the Institute of Philosophy and Human Sciences (IFCH) at UNICAMP. *Regrettably, the professor did not even begin to develop his research project, having died on January 31, 2019.

MIGRATIONS IN BRAZIL

During his sabbatical year at the IEA, José Renato de Campos Araújo, a professor at the School of Arts, Sciences and Humanities (EACH), will address the theme "Migrant Brazil: Population Flows, Public Policies and State Structures."

The intention is to map the bureaucratic-administrative structures existing in the federal government related to the migratory flows in Brazil - both the emigration of Brazilians and the immigration of foreigners - as well as the main characteristics of these structures' actions.

Araújo highlights the relevance of the subject in the social sciences, with Brazilian researchers having produced "a reasonable number of studies and projects in the area for at least two decades."

In his opinion, this is due to the migratory movements themselves, which have undergone important transformations in the last four decades.

"At the same time as new immigrants arrive in Brazil - as Latin Americans, Africans, Chinese, Koreans and other origins that did not yet make up the mosaic of ethnicities that mark the population of the country -, we become an important source of emigrants on the international stage."

Based on the studies carried out at EACH and on the work to be developed at the IEA, Araújo intends to create a series of research actions to understand the complete cycle (formulation, implementation and evaluation) of the public policies related to the migratory phenomenon in Brazil. "To a certain extent, the objective is to answer whether or not there has been a migratory policy in the country or only ad hoc state actions facing short-term problems."

Mauricio Pietrocola Pinto de Oliveira A professor at the Department of Methodology of Teaching and Comparative Education at the School of Education since 2010, Oliveira began his teaching career in the same department in 2002. He holds a degree in physics from USP, having specialized in the history and epistemology of sciences at the University of Paris Diderot. He became a master in science education at USP, and a Ph.D.-holder in epistemology and history of science from the University of Paris Diderot. He has been a professor at the Federal University of Santa Catarina. He participates in the EU-funded research project Hope – Horizon 2020 in Physic Education.

SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION IN THE RISK SOCIETY

Mauricio Pietrocola Pinto de Oliveira, from the School of Education (FE), will analyze the "Scientific Education in the Risk Society."

For him, one of the most sensitive impacts of globalization on social life is a diffused perception by individuals about the role of science and technology today. "In spite of the benefits that have been developed from science and technology to society - at least for people living in rich and industrialized regions -, such as increased life expectancy, clean water and basic sanitation, modernity has witnessed an increase in public anxiety and fragile confidence in the sciences."

According to Oliveira, German sociologist Ulrich Beck states in his 1986 book "Society of Risk: Towards a New Modernity" that modern social life is confronted with new forms of self-produced risks that challenge humanity. "This implies that living in a 'risk society' would be to assume a calculating attitude towards the possibilities of action, positive and negative, with which we are continually confronted." This confrontation impacts both on an individual level and on a global level, says the researcher.

During his sabbatical year at the IEA, Oliveira intends to address how this evaluation of the new modernity impacts the educational project in general and of scientific education in particular. The idea is to "suspend the perspectives contained in CTS (science, technology and society) approaches and scientific literacy, and advance the discussion on the challenges of contemporary scientific education."

Dennis de Oliveira Oliveira is head of the Department of Journalism and Publishing at the School of Communications and Arts (ECA), where he joined the Journalism course as a professor in 2003. He has earned all his academic degrees from ECA. He also works as a professor and adviser in the Post-Graduate Program in Integration of Latin America (ECA,) and in the Post-Graduate Program in Social Change and Political Participation (EACH). He has also taught at the Methodist University of Piracicaba, at the Brazilian Center for Latin American Studies, at Anhembi-Morumbi University, University of Mogi das Cruzes and Faculty of Valinhos.

CULTURE GROUPS OF THE PERIPHERY

For six months, Dennis de Oliveira will work on the research project "Insurgent Outskirts: the Culture and Communication Collectives in the Peripheries of São Paulo."

His objective is to reflect on the experiences of cultural and communication groups in the outlying districts of São Paulo, particularly those financed by official development programs.

The theoretical framework of the study is the culture of subaltern classes and cultural mediations developed by Latin American researchers influenced by Italian Marxist philosopher, politician and journalist Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937.)

The research methodology foresees a mapping of cultural initiatives and the selection of projects for qualitative analysis.

The mapping of cultural actions will be done with digital tools and the use of data from projects financed by the São Paulo City Hall promotion programs, such as VAI (Valorization of Cultural Initiatives) and the Law to Promote Peripheries.

Projects from different regions will be selected, preferably, for the qualitative analysis. In them, the communicative processes used to disseminate and articulate the communities and the socioeconomic data of the region will be verified. This work will be complemented by interviews semi-structured with the leaders of the proposing groups with the objective of "checking the views built on communication and culture, on the region of operation and on the municipality."

Marco Antonio Bettine de Almeida Graduated in physical education from UNICAMP and in law by PUC-Campinas, Almeida has become a doctor in leisure studies at UNICAMP and a full professor at EACH. He has conducted postdoctoral research in sports sociology at the University of Porto. In the last six years, he carried out four research projects: one on the relevance of the FIFA Soccer World Cup in 2014 and the 2016 Olympic Games as Brazilian soft power instruments; two on the influence of the main railroads and the Tietê River in the development of São Paulo football; and one on the applicability of quality of life and leisure programs in Brazil, developed by the city of Porto.

WORLD CUP AND SOFT POWER

Marco Antonio Bettine de Almeida, also a professor at EACH, will resume his project "Soft Power: A Look at the Strategic Use of BRICS Hosting the FIFA World Cup - Analysis of South Africa, Brazil and Russia."

Almeida will analyze how South Africa, Brazil and Russia have increased their soft power. The reference will be the news on the events held in these countries that have been published by Le Monde, El País, and BBC.

In this analysis, he will try to establish the relations between the speeches of the three countries during the events in search of the increase of their soft power and what was actually reported by the international media.

The study will also seek to identify the relationship between the choice of the countries as hosts and the importance of BRICS as new players in the mega-sport events of the 21st century.

Almeida will examine the news focusing on the search for the increment of soft power from the categories of culture, political values and international politics defined by American political scientists Joseph Nye and Robert Keohane.

Photos (from the top): EP, FFLCH, IP, Leonor Calasans/IEA, FE, Leonor Calasans/IEA and EACH

At the end of the second phase of the Intercontinental Academia (ICA) in Nagoya, on March 18, the 13 participants presented the details of the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on "Time" they have been working on since the first phase of the project in São Paulo.

The MOOC is the practical activity that has been asked to the participants as outcome of the ICA and was inspired by conferences, debates and workshops on the subject "Time", held both in São Paulo and in Nagoya.

The MOOC will be called 'Frontiers of Time: Exploring the Last Great Mystery' and will be hosted at Coursera's database, an online course platform created by five major American universities, of which USP is a partner.

There will be five lessons plus a video about the production of the course. Each lesson will take about one hour and have a text with approximately 7,000 words. The topics of the classes will be:

1. Introduction: Aspects of Time

2. Is the Present Special?

3. Time, Change and Cultural Differences

4. Is Time Different for Humans and Non-Humans?

5. How Do We Evaluate Time?

Each class will be divided into thematic sections. The first of them (Introduction: Aspects of Time), for example, will have four sections: 1) What is Time? 2) How do we perceive time? 3) How Do We Think About Time? 4) How do we use Time?.

The scripts will be ready in June and the filming is scheduled for August. One of the proposals is that the filming - with the performance of some of the participants - occurs at the research base of USP's Oceanographic Institute in Ubatuba, on the north coast of the State of São Paulo. Other alternative locations for the class production will still be considered.

Photo: IAR / Nagoya University

The footage of the online course that the participants of the first edition of the Intercontinental Academia (ICA) are producing on the theme "Time" started this Monday, March 6. In Ubatuba, at the "Clarimundo de Jesus" Research Base of USP's Oceanographic Institute (IO), five young researchers who are part of the project will be focused until March 10 to record the lessons of the four sections that make up their Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). With a total of two hours, the course shall be hosted at Coursera's database.

MOOC recording backstage
Nikki Moore prepares to start filming

The group of 13 participants is being represented by David Gange, from the University of Birmingham; Eduardo Almeida and Helder Nakaya, both from USP; Nikki Moore, from Rice University; and Valtteri Arstila, from the University of Turku. During this week, they will be supervised by members of the ICA Senior Committee Martin Grossmann, from USP's School of Communications and Arts (ECA), and Regina Markus, from USP's Institute of Biosciences (IB).

The ICA is a program of the University-Based Institutes for Advanced Study (UBIAS), a network that brings together 36 institutes of advanced studies from universities of all continents. The IEA-USP and Nagoya University's Institute for Advanced Research (IAR) are responsible for the first edition. The meeting in São Paulo took place from April 17 to 30, 2015, and the second phase in Nagoya, between March 6 and 18 of last year.

The project brings together young researchers from different nationalities and areas of knowledge to develop studies on a common subject. Its accomplishment was possible thanks to the partnership and support of the Deans for Research of USP and Nagoya University, besides Itaú Cultural, which finances a major part of the costs through the programme Global Networks of Young Investigators of the Olavo Setubal Chair of Art, Culture and Science.

The researchers arrived in Ubatuba after having prepared the scripts to be filmed by a video producer. After the recordings, the course is expected to be completely ready to air in June.

Photo 1: IO-USP; Photos 2 and 3: Richard Meckien / IEA-USP

A new concept for the analysis of the sustainability conditions of urban and rural areas has been used by researchers in recent years. It is the "food-water-energy nexus" test, which seeks to examine the interrelationships of these three essential components of environmental and human quality. The subject was addressed in a public event on March 29, at the seminar Use of geographic methods to characterize social inequalities.

The seminar was organized by the IEA in partnership with the Institute of Advanced Studies of the University of Birmingham (UoB). Both Institutes are members the network University-Based Institutes for Advanced Study (UBIAS) and have been carrying out several activities together in recent years.

Researchers from the UoB, and the universities of Leicester and Northampton participated as exhibitors. The commentator was Thais Mauad, a professor at USP's School of Medicine and coordinator of IEA's Study Group on Urban Agriculture (GEAU). The meeting was coordinated by Ligia Vizeu Barrozo, a professor at USP's Faculty of Philosophy, Languages and Literature, and Human Sciences (FFLCH), and coordinator of IEA's Study Group on Urban Space and Health.

The first panel of the meeting addressed the research (Re)Connect the Nexus: Young Brazilians' Experiences of and Learning about Food, Water and Energy, developed by researchers from the three British universities and the São Paulo State University (UNESP).

The research is underway and aims to analyze the experiences of young people (10 to 24 years) in the Paraíba River Valley and the North Coast of the State of São Paulo with questions related to food, water resources and energy sources, as well as to verify what they know about the relationship between these three factors.

Peter Kraftl

Project coordinator Peter Kraftl, from the UoB, talked about the objectives and methodology of the research, the concept of food-water-energy nexus and the questioning of this approach. According to him, the notion of nexus has been advocated primarily by researchers and policy makers in the US and the UK. "One of the questions we want to evaluate is whether this idea is relevant to Brazil."

While nexus-based thinking may be useful for policy-making groups, "it involves creating connections and examining trade-offs that end up in an imposed holism, reducing complex social and material processes to mere components of the nexus, such as food and water," commented Kraftl. In his view, many researches ignore the reality of life of individuals and communities, and how they engage in the nexus.

Kraftl said that one of the main problems for formulating public policies from the nexus analysis is to minimize the trade-off as much as possible, such as in the dilemma between planting to produce food or biofuels. He asked: "Who makes these decisions? How are they made? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each option?"

However, he considers that examining how young people and policy makers see the interweaving of the components of the nexus influences people's lives and work, and can favor sustainability education.

Besides Kraftl, the research was commented by Catherine Walker, from the University of Leicester, who dealt with interviews with leaders and professionals, and Cristiana Zara, from the UoB, who talked about the interviews with young people from the Paraíba River Valley.

Detailed reference interviews with 5,000 young people in the region began in March. In the same period, qualitative interviews began with 50 young people. A mobile application has been provided to respondents to record their daily experiences regarding food, water, and energy. By June, 50 policy makers, including educators and representatives of the private sector and government agencies, will also be interviewed.

The project is also holding a video contest. Ten videos will be online on YouTube for young people around the world to vote for their favorites.

Walker said that the interviews with leaders and professionals is helpful in understanding the context in which young people are growing, their access to resources, restrictions on access, and what they know about natural resources. One of the highlights of these interviews, she says, is the issue of rural exodus. "The young do not find opportunities for development and education in the countryside, and are attracted to cities by a variety of factors. This is worrying, since there are already large concentrations of people in the Paraíba River Valley. And as small food producers move to the city, the land ends up being occupied by intensive agriculture, which demands more water."

Safety in regard to water has also appeared prominently in the interviews, with many references to the water crisis of 2014/2015. "Several respondents pointed out that people are aware of the importance of resources when they become scarce, but they end up reverting to pre-crisis consumption habits when the supply normalizes."

Zara, in turn, pointed out that in the interviews that are being held with 5,000 youngsters they reveal their strong cultural involvement with food, with great appreciation for the role of food in favor of sociability. In the case of water, she said that there is an expansion of concepts about the various uses of the resource (food, sanitation, agriculture, energy production and industrial use), with the incorporation of the theme in education for sustainability," although this does not happen uniformly in the education system."

According to Zara, young people show a strong sense of individual responsibility for the proper use of natural resources. "For many of them, if everyone does their small part, this will encourage sustainable practices in the community. At the same time there is a strong sense of the political dimension of the issue, with the demand that the state should also play its part."

The project led by Kraftl is funded by the National Council of the State Research Support Foundations (via FAPESP) and two UK institutions: the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Newton Fund.

Sophie Hadfield-Hill

Urbanism in India

The second part of the event dealt indirectly with aspects related to the nexus, but in the specific context of the Indian urban growth. The theme was the project New Urbanisms in India: Urban Life, Sustainability and Everyday Life, also supported by the ESRC. The speaker was coordinator Sophie Hadfield-Hill, from the UoB.

According to her, 590 million Indians will be living in cities by 2030, with 91 million middle-class families and 61 cities with more than 1 million inhabitants." The demands for this urban growth will require an investment of US$ 1.2 trillion.

Hadfield-Hill spoke about new housing developments under construction on the outskirts of Indian cities and threats to urban areas. "There is the pressure of population growth and migration on urban services, access to sanitation, water and energy, as well as impacts on land and other consequences of social inequality."

The main challenges are the provision of quality water, sewage collection and electricity supply. "According to the World Bank, only 16% of households have sewage collection. No Indian city has 24-hour water supply and only 1/4 of the population has access to electricity."

Despite all these difficulties for urban life in India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, upon taking office in May 2014, proposed the creation of 100 smart cities, with the adaptation of existing cities and construction of entirely new cities, commented Hadfield-Hill. The proposal received several criticisms, she said, but 20 cities have already been selected through a national competition.

The Indian government defines smart cities as those that "care first about their most pressing needs and the best opportunities for improving the quality of life." They should use a range of approaches that include "digital and information technologies, best practices in urban planning, public-private partnerships, political change and thinking of people first," Hadfield-Hill said.

Among other initiatives, proposals for Indian smart cities include paving that captures the energy of moving cars, online water connections systems and smart bus stops.

As a case study she spoke about the construction of the city of Lavasa by a private enterprise. It will have five hubs (the first one is ready), house 300,000 inhabitants and receive 2 million tourists a year.

According to her, Lavasa is being built following the principles of new urbanism. Some of them are: sustainability; planned growth of density (population decreases as households move away from the center); mix of housing types, including income groups; ease of access to general services (10 minute-walk from home or work to most of them); architectural quality and urban design.

Photos: Marcos Santos/Jornal da USP