In addition to being a professor at EACH-USP, Barreyro also works in two postgraduate programs at the University: Education and Integration in Latin America. Her main research focus is on policies and evaluation of higher education at the global, regional and national scales.

In these first decades of the 21st century, there is a phase within the process of globalization in which national states are increasingly less autonomous towards other institutions that make up the global governance of higher education, such as the World Trade Organization (WTO,) the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD,) the World Bank, UNESCO, NGOs and various foundations.

This evaluation belongs to educator Gladys Beatriz Barreyro, a professor at USP's School of Arts, Sciences and Humanities (EACH,) and currently a participant of IEA's Sabbatical Year Program. She is developing a study on the impact of international university rankings on the institutional identity, and teaching, research and extension purposes of Brazilian research universities, having USP and UNICAMP as references.

Entitled "Internationalization of Higher Education: Use of Rankings," the research project aims to reduce the lack of studies on the subject in Brazil and disseminate the international literature on it.

Among the educational policies of this phase of globalization, Barreyro identifies the emergence of international university rankings as a new way of dealing with quality on a global scale in the first decade of the century, impacting regional and national scales. There is also a role model of the "world-class university," institutions dedicated to "applied and (if possible) profitable research."

For her, rankings have introduced the logic of competition between institutions in a global perspective and generated impacts on national and institutional policies, "despite their methodological limitations."

Part of the project was developed in the first half of this year, when she was at the IEA on sabbatical leave. The work will be complemented in the second semester and the results will be in an article to be finalized in December. She also intends to present them at a public event.

As it is an exploratory research, Barreyro is analyzing the material published by USP's Journal and UNICAMP's Portal from 2013 to 2017 on the positions occupied by both universities in the rankings. From this examination she will try to answer four questions:

• What is the use of the rankings at USP and Unicamp, and for what reasons?
• What changes in the identity and policies of these institutions have been produced by the use of these rankings, and what are the justifications for it?
• If institutional policies based on rankings have emerged, what are they?
• If the rankings are affecting the purposes of teaching, research and extension of both universities, what are the affected aspects?

The material is being studied from the critical analysis of the discourse oriented by categories, to be detected in the course of examining the texts.

In parallel to the survey and analysis of the materials published by the media of both universities, Barreyro has been dedicating to two complementary activities: the bibliographic review on international rankings in national and international literature, and on world-class universities; and the systematization of the place occupied by both institutions in international and Latin American rankings, and in the list of BRIC universities.

Globalization

In the final decades of the 20th century, the impact of globalization on educational policies began, creating an internationally structured agenda for the area, according to the researcher. "In the national education systems, there was concern about evaluation. In the case of higher education in the 1980s, policies to measure its quality began, initiating the first phase of the 'Evaluating State,' an expression coined by British sociologist Guy Neave in 2012."

She states that the reduction of expenditures since the 1980s, due to the crisis of the welfare state, "have motivated the adoption of accountability policies, such as evaluations in national education systems started in the 1980s and 1990s in Latin America, stemming from neoliberal reforms."

Two other aspects of globalization have influenced vocational training, according to Barreyro: the processes of flexible accumulation (also called toyotism, which provides for flexibilization of production according to demand) and the emergence of the knowledge society. "They have resulted in the need to train professionals for the so-called knowledge economy," which "put higher education in the spotlight."

"Once considered a public good for the purpose of reproducing values and training human resources, higher education has become a private good, a commodity subject to the rules of commerce," says the researcher. She highlights the contributions to that change provided by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT,) which was in force until 1994, and by the World Trade Organization negotiations for the inclusion of education in the liberalization of trade in goods and services.

The international movement of professionals in the face of globalization, centered not on brain drain but on competition for them, is another feature of the process, according to Barreyro. On this competition, she cites the evaluation of two authors, Rahul Choudana and Hans de Wit, who assert that the knowledge economies of the OECD countries require highly qualified professionals and must resort to immigrants with this profile, since their population is aging and has diminished the interest of their young people in the hard sciences.

In the global education agenda, quality and its assessment are one of the political priorities, says Barreyro. "In higher education, quality assessment began to be developed in the 1980s and 1990s in European and Latin American countries with the creation of accreditation systems and agencies." She says that these countries have transformed the US accreditation model - "regardless of government" - in the so-called Evaluating State, mentioned by Guy Neave.

Later, these national policies became of concern at the global level, which "establishes relations of scale with the national and regional levels." According to her, Portuguese education sociologist Almerindo Janela Afonso sees a later stage, called by him "Post-Evaluating State," in which the decision is increasingly shunned by the decision of the national states, especially in the peripheral countries.

After analyzing the projects of 14 candidates, the Board of the IEA selected researchers from the following fields of knowledge: archaeology; performing arts and fashion; history; administration and innovation; law and public policy; and education.

The group is formed by professors Fabíola Andréa Silva, from the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology (MAE); Fausto Roberto Poço Viana, from the School of Communications and Arts (ECA); Maria Helena Pereira Toledo Machado, from the Faculty of Philosophy, Languages and Literature, and Human Sciences (FFLCH); Geciane Silveira Porto, from the Faculty of Economics, Administration and Accounting at Ribeirão Preto (FEARP); Diogo Coutinho, from the Faculty of Law (FD); and Gladys Beatriz Barreyro, from the School of Arts, Sciences and Humanities (EACH).

USP's president Marco Antonio Zago approved a resolution on June 19, 2015, establishing the Sabbatical Year Program at the IEA, an old aspiration of the Institute.

The selected professors will conduct research at the IEA only, getting relieved of their activities, including teaching, at the unit or organ to which they are linked. Every professor in the exercise of a sabbatical year will have the following duties: to conduct at least one public lecture per semester and to produce a new and original paper or other outcome (book or work of art, for example). In the case of producing a paper, this will be published in the journal "Estudos Avançados" and / or the IEA website.

Selected projects

Diogo Rosenthal Coutinho (FD-USP)

A professor at the Department of Economic and Financial Law of USP's Faculty of Law, Coutinho will develop the research project 'Uncertainty and legal barriers to innovation in Brazil', which will last 12 months. The project will discuss the roles of law in public policies and public-private relations in the field of innovation in Brazil. It is based on the premise that in order to foster innovation it is necessary to design, structure and articulate legal-institutional arrangements and contractual instruments capable of effectively coordinating key actors such as the State, companies and entrepreneurs, and universities. Coutinho will work with the hypothesis that despite a series of advances in legislation law can still be considered part of the set of "bottlenecks" to innovation in the country. At the end of the research, he intends to produce two academic articles, one in Portuguese and one in English.

Fabíola Andréa Silva (MAE-USP)

A professor and researcher at USP's Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Silva will conduct research at the IEA for 12 months. With the project 'Ethnography of Archaeology: an Interdisciplinary Study on the Use of Ethnographic Data in the Production of Archaeological Knowledge', she will seek to demonstrate and analyze the contribution of ethnographic practice to the production of archaeological knowledge in the Americas. Her research project is divided into two parts: 1. critical review of the bibliography on the use of ethnographic data and ethnographic practice in archaeological interpretation; 2. enforcement of an ethnographic practice in the context of an archaeological investigation. Silva will seek to understand how ethnography is entangled in archaeological practices, and how ethnographic data has contributed, over time, to archaeological interpretations of materiality.

Fausto Roberto Poço Viana (ECA-USP)

A professor at the Department of Performing Arts of USP's School of Communications and Arts, Viana will carry out the project 'Dressing the contemporary scene: Brazilian clothing from before 1500 until the end of the seventeenth century,' which will last 12 months and is already being developed by him. He will address the identification, creation, modeling and confection of costumes made or woen in Brazil from before 1500 to 1890. The research is focused on the work of the performing arts, notably the creation of scene costumes, both the realistic and the experimental ones, and artistic recreations. The researcher will study the historical background, life in society, fabrics, clothing and suits, trade and production of textiles, if any, different materials and adornments / props used, colors of fabrics, costumes and body painting, forms of sewing and confection of the costumes and categorization in Brazil of that time. During the sabbatical program, Viana intends to organize an electronic portal to organize research data and their products, a sort of a virtual museum.

Geciane Silveira Porto (FEARP-USP)

A professor at the Faculty of Economics, Administration and Accounting at USP in Ribeirão Preto, Porto works in the areas of innovation management and entrepreneurship. At the IEA, she will carry out a 12-month research project entitled 'Evolution of cooperation networks and emerging technologies in the biotechnology segments: an application of Ars Dynamics in patents". The study aims to analyze the evolution of the technological efforts of the biotechnology sector in Brazil and in the world, applying the technique of analysis of dynamic social networks to build cooperation networks among companies, universities and research institutes, as well as to map the technological routes that have resulted in the development of patented inventions in the biotechnology segments of these networks. Porto hopes to map the main players, the promising technologies and their target markets in the last 20 years, and to verify the insertion of the Brazilian actors in the respective collaborative networks, which will allow to monitor the trends of emerging technologies.

Gladys Beatriz Barreyro (EACH-USP)

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

Ibirapuera Park

The planning of public policies, legislation and city master plans suffer from a well-known cultural malaise in Brazilian society: the deviation from their original functions aiming at attending minor or particular interests at the time of their implementation. Likewise, administration suffers from deviations when the management of the public issue is distributed among political parties. "Many problems are not solved by a political issue and the obstacles of the cities end up becoming a political platform, so there is no interest in solving them. We are impregnated with political behaviour. We bring political-partisan issues to the context of public policy discussion in a very exaggerated way," says Professor Arlindo Philippi Jr., who is participating in the 2017 Sabbatical Year Program at the IEA and develops the project 'Urban Experiences in the Perspective of New Ideas and Sustainable Solutions for the City.'

The ongoing work at the IEA will lead to proposals for public managers and urban researchers in the form of a book. The volume 'Urban Management and Sustainability' is due to be launched in early 2018 as part of the Manole Publishing House Environmental Collection, which Philippi Jr. has been developing for more than 10 years. The collection includes dozens of titles focusing on environmental issues, social issues, sustainable development, natural resources and public management. The present volume will count on the contribution of dozens of specialists in urban issues, including housing, sanitation, mobility, violence and management, among other topics.

Arlindo Philippi Jr: "Many problems are not solved by a political issue and the obstacles of the cities end up becoming a political platform"

According to Philippi Jr., the kind of management practiced in Brazilian cities has been exhausted for a long time. "The city does not deliver what the citizen needs in terms of service provision, land ownership and other issues. In general, planning includes good things and good ideas, but it is subverted in its implementation by contemplating minor issues to the detriment of what would be best for the citizen," says the professor.

The governability of the cities is also flawed, according to the researcher. "The huge Brazilian political spectrum appears and the mayor ends up distributing the functions of city administration between the parties. Thus, he uses only a little of the knowledge sedimented in the very structure of the public service, which are the effective employees, who should be ahead of the administration," he says.

For him, when some innovation is presented in public management, it is generally received with much criticism, but it is up to the administrator to demonstrate that the measures will provide well-being to the citizens. "When I was the mayor of USP's campus in the Butantã neighbourhood, we received a lot of criticism due to the implementation of the exclusive bus and bicycle lanes. But through the website of our administration we were showing the reasons for the change. Today, the vast majority of people respect these lanes," he exemplifies.

Citizen participation is another important issue for good public administration, recalls the professor. "There is no solution for anything including democracy if there is no participation of people. Citizen participation presupposes that citizens have access to management information. The term 'transparency' has been used as a word of effect and so we need to remember that transparency in public management means providing data and technical knowledge through a reliable system," he emphasizes.

Information systems are fundamental management tools. Many of them have been created and deployed, but fail because it is often not in the interest of the government to inform citizens, according to the professor. Likewise, indicators of sustainability and effective communication of public facts are ways of promoting citizenship, he recalls.

According to Philippi Jr., the book to be published will be sent to city managers with the intention of presenting innovations and successful experiments in public management. It may also serve as a basis for the training of professionals who want to work with the urban issue, as well as contribute to the submission of new research on the discussed topics.

Activities

Three seminars, a technical meeting, partnerships with new research groups and the publication of academic articles are activities included in the goals of the sabbatical project. Through the set of proposed experiments, discussions and reflections, the study will seek to contribute with ideas and solutions that respond to the daily needs of people in changing urban environment in view of the principles of sustainability and interdisciplinary articulation.

The meeting 'Urban Experiments, New Ideas and Sustainable Solutions for Cities', held in April, focused on the visions of various segments and brought the successful experiences of cities in fields such as energy, urban mobility, housing, urban agriculture and inclusive culture. "São Paulo, for example, has an information system, called PRODAM, which makes it possible to follow the most diverse demands of citizens. And managers can benefit from this database to improve management," exemplifies Philippi Jr.

In May, the 'Academic Meeting on Interdisciplinarity and Innovation in Universities of Excellence' brought researchers from the most prestigious universities and research institutions in Brazil to deal with knowledge frontier topics that require the interface between disciplines to solve complex problems.

"The practice of interdisciplinarity in teaching, research and extension requires innovative approaches. It is a form of knowledge production that implies theoretical and methodological exchanges that make the professional and the researcher leave their comfort zone. This type of approach is increasingly widespread in the world, and in Brazil there are excellent groups working on this issue. There are universities that have been entirely created from the presuppositions of interdisciplinarity, such as USP' School of Arts, Sciences and Humanities (EACH), the Federal University of Southern Bahia, the Federal University of the Southern Border and others," says the professor, who has already served as director of evaluation of the Coordination of Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES), and has been the coordinator of the Interdisciplinary and Environmental Sciences areas of the institution.

The business management dealt with during the 'National Business & Sustainability Colloquium', held in June, concerns entrepreneurship and innovation, not necessarily private companies. The venture may refer to companies or public management, explains Philippi Jr. The event brought together public, private and civil society organizations that showed management models focused on good practices based on sustainability.

According to the professor, the next step will be to seek interaction between the various research groups of the IEA that work on issues related to the urban issue. "The idea is to bring together the coordinators of these research groups to an initial meeting in order to identify common objectives and areas of action, as well as new research fields and new partnerships," he says. The prospect is to hold the technical meeting in August.

The professor will also participate in the 14th International Conference on Urban Health, which will take place from September 24 to 28 in Coimbra, Portugal, as an activity planned for his sabbatical year at the IEA. Philippi Jr. will participate on September 25, attending the pre-conference 'Shaping policies to promote urban health equity: a socio-technical approach. Evidence from the EURO-HEALTHY case studies', having been invited by the EURO-HEALTHY project coordinator.

Organized by the International Society for Urban Health Secretariat, a part of The New York Academy of Medicine, the international meeting will address 'Equity in Health: The New Urban Agenda and the Goals of Sustainable Development.' The International Society of Urban Health (ISUH) is a global organization created in 2002 that brings together academics, governments, NGOs and companies to improve the health of cities.

Photos: Allan White and Leonor Calasans

One of the enriching results of the first edition of the IEA Sabbatical Year Program is the performance of the video 'Dynamics, Fluctuations and Blindspots,' by cultural policy expert Lúcia Maciel Barbosa de Oliveira, a professor at USP's School of Communications and Arts (ECA), and filmmaker Priscila Lima.

Available on YouTube, the video is based on the research 'Contemporary Cultural Dynamics: Overlapping of Singularities, Collectives, Technologies and Cultural Institutions in the Common Perspective', developed by Oliveira at the IEA from March 2016 to February 2017.

The 24-minute long video synthesizes six hours of recorded interviews with artists, cultural producers, managers and researchers. The interviews were part of the work carried out by the researcher in the places of action of the cultural collectives, where she participated in discussions with their members and accompanied performances.

The realization of the video was made possible thanks to the scholarship of the Sabbatical Year Program granted to researchers by USP's Dean of Research. The production also had the support of ECA.

Oliveira has worked with cultural policy for many years, having even worked in film production before becoming a professor at USP. Producing something different from the usual writing of scientific articles has always been an aspiration: 'My desire was to produce a video to give voice to the people of the cultural collectives and to make the power of their work appear, which would be difficult in an article, which is something more descriptive.'

Given the academic compartmentalisation in the evaluation of projects by development agencies, however, she realized that this idea would be difficult to achieve: 'If I asked the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) for resources to produce a video, I could hardly do it because it is not within the audiovisual area. I saw the sabbatical program at the IEA as was a very good chance to combine the realization of the video with my research proposal, which is a cut from a bigger project that I develop.'

Blindspots

The title of the video refers to the dynamics of the emergence of the cultural collectives and also to two aspects: "The term 'fluctuations' is due to the fact that culture itself is fluctuating, fugitive, procedural; and 'blindspots' is related to the quote in the beginning of video, by British researcher Terry Eagleton, taken from the book The Idea of Culture": 'Every culture has an internal blindspot where it fails to grasp or be at one with itself, and to discern this... is to understand that culture more fully.'

This statement by Eagleton, according to Oliveira, means that culture has aspects that are incomprehensible, untranslatable, non-verbalizable, that we must conform to the total misunderstanding of this universe. For her, certain aspects of the relationship between the dynamics of the cultural collectives and formal cultural policies are examples of blindspots, including the use of cultural equipment that embodies these policies.

Lúcia Maciel Barbosa de Oliveira was a sabbatical researcher at the IEA in 2016

'My intention was to balance the speech of some of the managers of cultural equipment in São Paulo with the words of some collectives. I wanted to understand this dynamics in a municipal administration [that of former mayor Fernando Haddad] that opened for a more active participation of the cultural collectives in the equipment and in which a certain disjunction between the discourses persisted."

Co-management

Oliveira explains that the cultural collectives do not claim a complete autonomy in the management and use of cultural equipment: "The groups that have created the House of Culture of the Ermelino Matarazzo neighbourhood have occupied a property of that subprefecture that was abandoned, and proposed a co-management contract, which was accepted by the Municipal Secretariat of Culture. Resources were passed on to a cultural collective with legal inscription in charge of management and accountability. "

At the time, the secretariat pointed to this co-management agreement as the embryo of a model for the São Paulo's culture houses, according to the researcher. 'This is not strange in other countries.'

The emergence of the cultural collectives

The cultural collectives are the result of the very public cultural policies, according to Lucia. "Many of these young people have been motivated by the programs and pageants that tried to expand the scope of the Municipal Secretariat of Culture to encompass the peripheries."

The cultural collectives have nothing of amateur or improvisational, according to Oliveira. 'They have clarity about what their work is, and their actions are very much discussed and elaborated.' Many of these people went to college, benefited from recent educational policies. They use whatever is possible, such as pageants, funding, media insertion and working with digital resources, all without giving up their references and the principles that govern the groups."

Oliveira's biggest project is to think of cultural policies for the 21st century from the demands of a civil society that has been expanding its participation. 'Culture is a field that allows certain flexibilities in experimentation, which can be broadened to other areas thanks to these co-management processes through participatory budgeting.'

Photos (from the top): 1. Taken from 'Dynamics, Fluctuations and Blind Spots'; 2. Leonor Calasans/IEA-USP

Frederico Azevedo da Costa Pinto, one of IEA's sabbatical researchers in 2017

As natural as demonstrating joy and sadness is the expression of being sick. Among the vast repertoire of animal manifestations, "sick behavior" - as it is called among specialists - is the demonstration of discouragement, prostration, lack of appetite and the will to do nothing. These are clear signs that animals emit when they do not want social contact because they are sick. "It is the way to give the body time to recover and even preserve the social group from getting sick. But this behavior is being increasingly repressed in modern societies by the way workers' productivity is viewed," says Professor Frederico Azevedo da Costa Pinto, a specialist in experimental pathology and animal behavior, and participant in the IEA Sabbatical Year Program in 2017.

With the research project "Modern Man: An Animal Socially Deprived of the Right to Become Sick," the pathologist will go through the historical evolution of how the behaviors of sick individuals used to be viewed and how this behavior has been perceived in modern societies. In parallel, he will search for data in the related literature on the expression of this behavior among humans, relating them to the behavior of experimental animals.

The historical evaluation will allow to confront changes in the working day with the productivity expectations of the modern worker, he believes.

If in modern societies becoming ill becomes prohibitive, the counterpoint to "camouflage" disease is the increasingly common use of medicines. "Expressing unhealthy behavior would incur absences at work and therefore we are encouraged to take medication, often self-medication, in order to maintain the expected work day. Associated with this is the fact that the most prescribed and consumed classes of drugs in modern societies are precisely the palliative medicines for pains, colds and allergies, for example," he says.

The project will evaluate investments in research and dissemination of drugs aimed at the temporary relief of the malaise of certain diseases. "They are medicines that do not necessarily shorten the course of the disease; nor do they actually improve health conditions," says Costa Pinto.

"Let's not be purists. Taking medicine helps you getting through illness without suffering. But this does not prevent the individual from also staying in comfort at home. In reality, what we are trying to discuss is the fact that the individual takes medication to force themselves to continue working," he says.

In addition, there is the problem of excess and self-medication. In some countries, legislation allows drugs to be offered on gondolas, making access easier. But there are health systems, as in Canada, for example, where there is no excess or self-medication because there is no such facility of access, he compares.

Culture and legislation

Cultural differences also influence how the patient behaves. Even legislation can vary as a reflection of the cultural aspect, says the scientist. "Countries with more consistent social protection allow people to get sick, because the legislation provides for a longer sick leave. Even the longer maternity and paternity leave denote this kind of respect for the worker," he recalls.

On the contrary, countries that tend to work longer and with outsourced work place workers at increasingly absurd pressures, suppressing the individual's right to become ill, he says. "The right to get sick tends to become unacceptable in these societies, because they serve a logic that makes individuals expendable," he says.

But what is the problem in not allowing yourself to express the disease? "One of them, the most obvious one, is to take the disease to the social group, in the case of an individual who camouflages an infectious disease, for example," he says. Another problem in not manifesting the disease is the individual becoming increasingly subject to uncured diseases and that may have recurrences or become chronic. "We are talking about everyday diseases, not serious diseases. I have no doubt that not allowing yourself to fall ill will lead to a worse or incomplete recovery, since palliative medicines offer a momentary response to the symptoms of the disease," he says.

In addition, there are long-term emotional changes that seem to be associated with the fact that the person does not stop when they need to. "Not giving yourself this time can generate disorders, including psychological ones," says the pathologist.

All these cultural and legal aspects denote how much each society cares about the health of their citizens, he believes.

Similarities

We are more like animals than we imagine. Bizarre things that we assumed to be exclusive to humans have been observed among bugs. "For example, unplanned copulation, performed simply for the demonstration of power and hierarchical superiority. Hierarchy is key to understanding the behavior of getting sick. A senior executive and a doorman demonstrate different ways to get sick," he says.

The immune system has a lot to do with hierarchy, says the pathologist. "Some people do not demonstrate unhealthy behavior simply because they are more resilient, or because the hierarchical position in a company prevents it. They may not want to show vulnerability. Others do not express unhealthy behavior because they can not lose their jobs," he says.

Prurigo nodularis, an autoimmune disease of unknown cause

More and more research projects show that things that happen in the nervous system have physical connections. This includes the immune response, which is a protective response to infections. The same response that prepares the body for an immediate response, such as running away from a thug, is also the kind of response that modulates immunity, he compares. "Stress, for example, is an adaptive protective response described 80 years ago that works with this same mechanism," he says.

Subordination and immune response in animals have been studied to also evaluate how a "submissive" animal behaves in face of the disease. A research model, which injects bacteria to simulate disease in a rat pair, showed that the subordinate animal's pressures were different from the dominant's pressures, he says. "In this case, the dominant is allowed to demonstrate disease. The subordinate lends attention to the dominant and demonstrates to be socially submissive all the time, without being concerned with manifesting the unhealthy behavior", compares the scientist.

The most positive effects expected of his research is that it can subsidize public policies, says the researcher. "In a country with social, economic and political problems, it is utopian to think that these aspects of health are even considered. But in practice, I hope at the very least to raise a discussion about where industrial society is pushing the individual. It does not make sense to have an economy growing at the expense of the loss of individual freedom and the health of the individual. In fact, we need to rethink the culture of growth, industrialization, the consumer market, and profit. Growing up is a charge in all social groups and at all levels. But what grows without stopping is a tumor; is cancer," he says.

Images: Leonor Calasans; Michael Katotomichelakis, Dimitrios G Balatsouras, Konstantinos Bassioukas,
Nikolaos Kontogiannis, Konstantinos Simopoulos, Vassilios Danielides.

Genital malformation is a congenital condition that affects one in every 2,500 individuals, according to estimates. It is currently considered one of the Disorders of Sex Development (DSDs). Disorders of this nature are due to chromosomal compositions different from those that define gender, alterations or nonexistence of the gonads (ovary and testicles) and alteration in the production or action of male hormones. These manifestations may occur isolated or associated with other congenital diseases.

The lack of information about the DSDs and their proper treatment are sources of social stigma and suffering for the patients, who can actually have a normal quality of life if they have the necessary assistance and follow-up.

According to endocrinologist Berenice Bilharinho de Mendonça, a professor at USP's School of Medicine who is spending her sabbatical leave at the IEA, the lack of adequate information about the DSDs is not exclusive to the public, also reaching a considerable part of health professionals, which harms diagnosis and investigation of the causes of the disease, essential factors for the treatment of patients.

Since March, she is conducting her research project entitled "Development and Dissemination of Educational Material to Improve the Diagnosis and Treatment of Disorders of Sex Development (DSDs) in Brazil".

Mendonça has dedicated effort to the study of DSDs and to the follow-up of people affected by them for 40 years, a period during which the popular denomination of the patients, especially in the case of atypical genitalia, went from inadequate and stigmatizing terms, such as "hermaphrodite", to the imprecision of the term "intersexual", common for some years. She said that the patients themselves reject those terms and so the concept of sexual development disorder was adopted in the so-called Chicago Consensus, which was drawn up from a medical congress held in the city in 2006.

The researcher argues that a child should begin to be treated as soon as possible, including accurate reconstructive plastic surgeries when appropriate for the definition of their social sex. "This is independent of future gender identification or sexual preference and it is essential for the child not to feel discriminated and stigmatized."

"Certain sectors, such as groups of DSDs carriers, deal with the issue as if there was something like a 'third sex', when in fact the changes are the result of an illness. It is naturally accepted that a child may be born with malformation of the heart to be corrected, but one can not see that the same can occur with the genitalia and that this alteration does not correspond to a natural variation'.

Mendonça questions the groups that advocate that the carriers of an atypical genitalia should choose which social sex they wish via surgery as adults: "These groups are usually people traumatized by malpractice surgeries in childhood."

Risk of death

An early diagnosis becomes a life-or-death case when it comes to infants with DSDs associated with a congenital deficiency of hormones that are essential to life and produced by the adrenal glands: the congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH). In the manifestation of the disease there is salt-wasting (60% of cases).

In the CAH there is the production of male hormone in girls, which causes the virilization of the external genitalia. "Even in important centers such as São Paulo, 55% of the girls with virilized genitalia are attributed to the CAH because of lack of knowledge by the medical teams." But it is the boys who are at greater risk of death, since the CAH does not alter their genitalia and, therefore, it is not hypothesized that they are carriers of hyperplasia.

During her stay at the IEA, Medonça will develop actions to accelerate the diagnosis of this type of CAH, whose incidence is one in 10 thousand births. As the episodes of salt-wasting occur during the first 15 days of the baby's life, it is essential to run confirmatory biochemical tests in specialized centers as soon as a possibility of the disease is identified by the Guthrie test (done soon after birth). "Only this way it will be possible to immediately start treatment with medicines to ensure the survival of the child, who will have to take them for a lifetime."

There are DSDs that are not evident at birth or throughout early childhood, according to Mendonça. It may happen that at puberty a girl does not start menstruating and ends up finding out that she has no ovaries, but internal dysfunctional testicles. "It is a case where, instead of having XX sex chromosomes, the girl has XY sex chromosomes, which are male definers. These chromosomal differences happen in two of every 50 thousand individuals on average, that is, of every 25 thousand women, one will have XY sex chromosomes instead of XX sex chromosomes, the same happening in every 25,000 men, where one will have XX sex chromosomes and not XY ones."

This chromosomal alteration has happened to Belgian top model Hanne Gaby Odiele, who has already paraded for several haute couture designer brands (currently she is the "face" of the French Balanciaga). She has XY chromosomes associated with androgen insensitivity syndrome due to a mutant gene that encodes the androgenic receptor located on the X chromosome. At the age of 10, she had the internal testicles removed and at the age of 18 she underwent surgery for the adequacy of the size of her vagina.

Dissemination

The objective of Mendonça's project at the IEA is to develop and disseminate protocols for health professionals and instructive materials on clinical, laboratory and molecular diagnosis for parents, family members and teachers of children with DSDs. The intention is to collaborate with the diagnosis and appropriate treatment of these children in Brazil.

Her first activity will be the development of a proposal for patients with atypical genitalia to have a national registration. They would be registered after their and / or their parents' consent, being ensured of their absolute secrecy of identity. Another concern is to publicize the use of the emergency medical card to warn of the risk of salt-wasting crises in CAH patients with this implication.

She will also provide studies to define the molecular causes of DSDs in the multi-user Large Scale Sequencing (SELA) laboratory of FM-USP. This will be done when the molecular study shows itself important to ascribing the patients' social sex.

One of the books to be produced will be elaborated in the form of questions and answers, and directed to the orientation of relatives of children with atypical genitalia. The other book will be on sexual education of children and adolescents with DSDs.

In parallel to this all, Mendonça will continue to provide online counseling to physicians who treat children with atypical genitalia throughout the country. This will be done through the website www.endocrinologiausp.com.br and by means of other internet resources, such as YouTube and Skype. In the latter case it is necessary to evaluate the observable characteristics of the child.

In addition, she will develop teaching material to be made available online and will provide face-to-face classes to health professionals (nurses, social workers, doctors and biologists) in university centers in other states. In these classes, the researcher will disclose clinical protocols for the care of children with atypical genitalia, and inform parents and relatives of these children about the issue.

In the therapeutic field, Mendonça intends to make efforts for the São Paulo State Health Department to develop actions to make hydrocortisone and fludrocortisone available for the treatment of salt-wasting CAH in Brazil.

She said that meeting this demand is in line with the principles of the Brazilian law which deals with therapeutic care and the incorporation of health technology within the scope of the Unified Health System (SUS). "What is important is that these medicines are available either through the production of public laboratories or through the purchase of domestic or foreign private suppliers."

Mendonça also wants to work together with the Association of Parents and Friends of the Exceptional (APAE) and the São Paulo State Secretary of Health to reduce the time of convocation of the children screened for CAH through the Guthrie test. This should lower the incidence of dehydration and hospitalization of affected children. According to the researcher, currently 65% of children undergoing confirmatory exams at Hospital das Clínicas, owned by the FM-USP, show dehydration. "This indicates that the neonatal screening still does not prevent the child from reaching this state due to the delay in their referral for specific tests."

At the end of the project, Mendonça will write a scientific paper in which she will report the results of the actions taken during the sabbatical year at the IEA.

Photo: Leonor Calasans/IEA-USP

The first edition of IEA's Sabbatical Year Program was marked by the enthusiasm of the six participating professors. In addition to producing articles, chapters of books, music and communications at international meetings, they have assiduously attended the Institute, participating in various activities not necessarily related to their research. The sabbatical period ended in February, but several of the professors intend to maintain academic ties with the IEA.

The vast production of the group is a direct consequence of the intense work of data collection, methodological detailling and theoretical reflection undertaken by the researchers. But the results are not only those that have already been produced. Research projects will also give rise to new articles, books, two theses and an opera.

Perhaps the most unusual contribution of this first edition is the composition of an opera by professor Rodolfo Nogueira Coelho de Souza, from the Department of Music of USP's Ribeirão Preto Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences, and Languages and Literature (FFLCRP). During his sabbatical period he wrote the libretto of the work in partnership with a researcher from UFPR, and composed part of the music.

Lúcia Maciel Barbosa de Oliveira, from the School of Communications and Arts (ECA), and Astolfo Gomes de Mello Araujo, from the Museum of Archeology and Ethnology, carried out research related to the future elaboration of their theses to become full professors at USP.

Oliveira's project addresses emerging cultural dynamics in the city of São Paulo. She had the opportunity to do the necessary bibliographical survey, to know the performance of diverse urban culture groups and to write an article for a specialized journal.

For Araujo, the program served to deepen the aspects of interdisciplinarity through specific literature and analyses of meetings held by the IEA on the subject. His project discusses archeology as a paradigm of interdisciplinarity. He has presented the first results of the work at a world congress in Japan.

Besides being present in the methodology used by Souza in the composition of the opera, mathematics plays a central role in the research of Flavio Ulhoa Coelho, from the Institute of Mathematics and Statistics (IME), who has already written some chapters of a book on the influence of philosophical and social issues in the evolution of algebraic thinking. Another planned work is an article in partnership with a UFABC researcher on the importance of highlighting this philosophical and social influence in teaching algebra to students in elementary education.

In Maria de los Angeles Gasalla's research, the social aspects are foreseen in the uncertain future of fishing communities due to ocean warming because of global climate change. During the sabbatical period, the professor of USP's Oceanographic Institute (IO) produced several texts and participated in meetings in South Korea, Thailand and Madagascar.

The uncertainty about the professional future was not part of the plans of Brazilian visual artists who self-exiled themselves in New York in the 1960s and 1970s at the invitation of American institutions. However, they ended up facing immense difficulties in working, exhibiting and living with the local artistic community. This is the theme of Dária Gorete Jaremtchuk's research. Throughout 2016, the professor of USP's School of Arts, Sciences and Humanities (EACH) published an article for a specialized journal and presented papers at meetings in Brazil and the United States.

It may be said that the sabbatical year of the six researchers officially ended in February, but the studies will continue for a long time with the production of new works, including articles that will be submitted to the IEA's journal Estudos Avançados and developments in new projects. Of course, several of these future activities will have the hallmark of living together among the six in the Institute, a fact highlighted by all as one of the best benefits provided by the program.

Photo: IEA-USP Archive

What is the risk of Donald Trump's neoconservative agenda interrupting or perverting public policies in Latin America aimed at sustainable development with innovation and democratization of opportunities? How will national and multilateral financial markets and institutions react to the new political scenario that heads to unilateralism? What does the new populism mean on a global scale?

Trying to answer these and further questions, economist Gilson Schwartz, a member of the IEA 2017 Sabbatical Year Program, has organized the seminar 'New Frontiers of Economic Geopolitics: Trump, Brazil and Latin America'. A group of speakers will discuss foreign policy and the profile of the new president of the United States of America on March 28, at 2.00 pm, in the IEA Events Room. The activity is a partnership between the IEA, USP's International Relations Research Center (NUPRI) and the Knowledge City Research Group, coordinated by Schwartz at the School of Communications and Arts (ECA-USP).

The event will be broadcast live in the IEA website.

"The focus of the debate is the identification of the new long-term challenges for the economy and society in Latin America after Trump's surprising victory. It is urgent to re-discuss the development model, not just short-term macroeconomic traps," says Schwartz.

The round-table format will bring together Otaviano Canuto, executive director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a group of countries that includes Brazil; Demétrio Magnoli, columnist for Folha de S. Paulo and GloboNews; Gesner de Oliveira, a professor at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV) and director of GO Associados; Octavio de Barros, former chief economist of Bradesco and creator of Instituto República; Marcelo Carvalho, chief economist for Latin America at BNP Paribas; Marcelo P. Cypriano, researcher at the Brazil Investment Link (NUPRI) and strategist at Mont Capital; Guilherme Ary Plonski, deputy director of the IEA; and Rafael Duarte Villa, scientific coordinator of the NUPRI.

According to Schwartz, the discussion will be guided by the theme of innovation, considering its financial, technological and cultural dimensions. The group will discuss the public policies of the new global digital and financial emergency, and the national economic issues that are being replaced in face of the global crisis unleashed by the global financial crisis that began in 2008. The central question will be: Is Latin America, and especially Brazil, prepared for the new global agenda?

The seminar opens a series of activities aimed at formulating a new agenda and global scenarios for economic development policies focused on the digitization of production, consumption and finance. It is also the launching point for the Brazilian Investment Link, which will continue this agenda of debates and research.

Photo: Gage Skidmore

Astolfo Gomes de Mello Araujo (Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology / MAE-USP) - "Ontology and Epistemology of an (Inter)discipline: Archaeology as a Paradigm of Interdisciplinarity and its Theoretical and Practical Implications"

Astolfo Araujo is a geologist with a MA and a PhD in Archaeology. During his PhD he spent one year at the Department of Anthropology, University of Seattle, USA. Coming back to Brazil he worked during several years at the Department of Historical Heritage, São Paulo City, until being hired by the University of São Paulo in 2007. Presently he is also a Senior Visiting Researcher at the University of Exeter, UK. His main line of research is linked to the application of methods from Earth Sciences into Archaeology. From the theoretical point of view, his interests are related to the application of evolutionary thought in human affairs (inside a long time perspective given by Archaeology), and the exploration of Archaeology's interdisciplinary character.

Dária Gorete Jaremtchuk (School of Arts, Sciences and Humanities / EACH-USP and School of Communications and Arts / ECA-USP),  - "Artistic Exile: Movement of Brazilian Artists to New York During the 1960s and 1970s"

Professor of Art, Literature and Culture in Brazil and History of Art at the School of Arts, Sciences and Humanities, São Paulo University (EACH / USP), Brazil. Collaborator in the Graduate Program in Visual Arts at the School of Communication and Arts (ECA / USP), Department of Visual Arts, where she directs theses on contemporary art.  At present she is a research fellow of the Research Productivity Program, sponsored by The National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq). She is currently researching the relocation of Brazilian artists during the Brazilian military dictatorship, and the relationship between art and politics in the 1960s and 1970s.

Flávio Ulhoa Coelho (Institute of Mathematics and Statistics / IME-USP) - "History of Algebraic Thinking and its Didactic Splits"

Mathematician, he got the degrees BSc (1982), MSc (1985) and Full Professor (1993) from the University of São Paulo, Brazil, and a PhD  (1990) from the University of Liverpool, UK. He has a position at the Institute of Mathematics and Statistics of the University of São Paulo (IME-USP) since 1985, being a full professor since 2003. His research area is Algebra, working mainly in Representation Theory. He is researcher of the CNPq since 1991. He held several management positions in academia, including  Head of the Departament of Mathematics (2002-2006); Vice-Dean  (2006-2010) and  Dean of the  IME-USP (2010-2014). He was member of the Academic  Activities Commission (2010-2013) and of the Central Commission of Academic Evaluation (2011-2015), both admisory committes of the University  Council of USP.  Member of the Board of the São Paulo State Academy of Science and representative of the IME-USP in the Center of History of Science. He is the author of four textbooks in mathematics. He is also a writer, having published six books (collections of short stories and novels). Researcher at the Institute of Advances Studies of USP in the Sabbatical Year program in 2016, his study theme is “History of Algebraic Thinking and its Didactic Splits”.

Lucia Maciel Barbosa de Oliveira (School of Communications and Arts / ECA-USP) - "Contemporary Cultural Dynamics: Overlapping of Singularities, Collectives, Technologies and Cultural Institutions in the Common Perspective"

Professor and researcher at the Department of Information and Culture of USP's School of Communications and Arts, and of the Graduation Programme in Information Science. She holds a PhD in Information Science, specifically Information and Culture, having Action and Cultural Mediation as her research field. She is a master in Communication Sciences, graduated in History and holds a degree in History from the School of Education. Her interests are related to cultural action and policy. Author of Corpos Indisciplinados: ação cultural em tempos de biopolítica ('Undisciplined Bodies: cultural action in biopolitics times'), Nossos comerciais, por favor! A Escola Superior de Guerra e a televisão brasileira ('Our commercials, please! The High Education of War and Brazilian television') and Biblioteca escolar e circuitos culturais ('School library and cultural circuits'). She develops the projects 'Culture and City Platform: Contemporary Cultural Dynamics' and 'Which are the cultural policies for the 21st century?'

Maria de los Angeles Gasalla (Oceanographic Institute / IO-USP) - "The Future of Marine-dependent Societies: Climate Change, Innequalities and Cooperation in Complex Socio-ecological Systems"

Professor Gasalla holds a PhD in Oceanography, a MSc in Biological Oceanography and a BSc in Biology, and became a fisheries scientist after a 10-year position at a public research body in Brazil and scientific opportunities at international institutions (e.g. Canada, Spain, Denmark, Mexico and Argentina) where she studied ecosystem and stock assessment modelling but also social sciences and economics. She is a professor at the University of São Paulo’s Oceanographic Institute (IOUSP) and head of the Fisheries Ecosystems Laboratory where interdisciplinary research and capacity building in contemporary fisheries science have been a focus. She is currently a researcher of the Brazilian National Research Council (CNPq) developing and testing innovative approaches to integrate different fisheries issues in the context of complex marine social-ecological systems. She has also been serving as a member of scientific international committes related to the oceans, fisheries and global climate change (IMBER, FAO). Her research projects include quantitative models, integrative science, and strategic analysis exploring indicators of sustainability, vulnerability and innovation. She has been involved in scientific and local basis for ocean resource management, marine biodiversity, fishing communities, fisheries economics, and their associated biophysical processes.  Mary has several publication in Brazil and abroad, incluing participation in the books “World Fisheries: a Social Ecological Analysis” and “Contemporary Visions of World Small Scale Fisheries” (2011). She is currently guest editor of the journal Maritime Studies (Springer) for a thematic series on Latin America. She is interested in theorethical approaches and empirical applications related to the governance of aquatic ecosystems, and on the integration of natural and social sciences.

Rodolfo Nogueira Coelho de Souza (College of Philosophy, Sciences and Humanities / FCLRP-USP) - "Invention of an Opera: Pascal's Machine in Pernaguá"

Associate professor of Music Theory and Composition at the Music Department of the College of Philosophy, Sciences and Humanities of the University of São Paulo at Ribeirão Preto (FFCLRP-USP). He also teaches and advises at the Graduate Program in Music of the School of Communications and Arts of the University of São Paulo (ECA-USP). Previously, from 2000 through 2005, he was professor at the Department of Arts at the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR). He has a Bachelor degree in engineering from the Polytechnic School of the University of São Paulo, a Master in Musicology from the ECA-USP and a DMA in Music Composition from the University of Texas at Austin (UT). He also developed, in 2009, a post-doctoral research at UT. His main fields of interest in music are composition for instruments and electronic sounds, analysis of modern music and computer music. His most recent research dealt with topics of Analysis of Brazilian Modern and Romantic Music, Computer Assisted Composition and Post-Tonal Theory. He coordinates the LATEAM (Laboratory of Music Theory and Analysis) at the DM-FFCLRP-USP and is editor of Musica Theorica (TeMA’s – Brazilian Association of Music Theory and Analysis online academic journal). Among is music compositions we may highlight The Book of Sounds (2010) for symphony orchestra and electronic sounds, Concerto for Computer and Orchestra (2000) and Tristes Trópicos (1991) for symphony orchestra. During the year of 2016, for the Sabbatical Program of the IEA, he is developing the project “Invention of an Opera: ‘Pascal’s Machine in Pernaguá’: a research in experimental art and sound technology innovation”.

The project was reopened thanks to Professor Mahir Saleh Hussein, coordinator of the IEA’s research group on Unconventional Nuclear Astrophysics. He participated in the initiative that gave rise to the program in 1991. The proposal is to foster a suitable environment for reflection and the release of the professors from their teaching and administrative burdens to fully participate in projects of the Institute from six months to a year.

Professors of the first edition of the Sabbatical Year Program, concluded in March 2017

Martin Grossmann, former director of the IEA, believes that the experience of the sabbatical also represents the discovery of a "missing link with the Dean of Research", which supports the program by allocating a specific amount of financial aid for approved projects.

According to the rules of the program, each participant must give at least one public lecture per semester of participation and produce a unique and original article or other product, such as a book or work of art.

News:

USP professors can now apply for a sabbatical year at the IEA

IEA's Board announces the selected names for the sabbatical year

Activities of the first edition of the IEA Sabbatical Year Program get started

All the news

Meet the researchers and their projects:

Researchers in 2019

Researchers in 2018

Researchers in 2017

Researchers in 2016

Andrea Cavicchioli (School of Arts, Sciences and Humanities / EACH-USP) - "Atlas of Earthen Architecture"

Associate professor of EACH-USP, Cavicchioli is BSc in Industrial Chemistry from the University of Milan (Italy), MSc in Environmental Analytical Chemistry from London University (UK) and PhD in Analytical Chemistry from the University of São Paulo (Brazil), where he also accomplished his post-doctoral fellowship.

Arlindo Philippi Jr. (School of Public Health / FSP-USP) - "Urban Experiences in the Perspective of New Ideas and Sustainable Solutions for the City"

Arlindo Philippi Jr. is currently Full Professor of Environmental Policy, Planning and Management at University of São Paulo, where he is Scientific Coordinator of the USP Environmental Health Interdisciplinary Group. He was Chairman of the Public Health Graduate Council at the School of Public Health; Deputy  and Provost for Post-Graduate Studies at USP; Mayor of  The USP Campus of São Paulo. He is Head of The Department of Environmental Health; member of The INCLINE-Interdisciplinary Investigation Center on Climate Change Deliberative Council; and currently is in a sabatic year at USP Institute of Advanced Studies, running a Project on Urban Experiences aiming new ideas and sustainable solutions for cities. At CAPES, The Brazilian Foundation on Education, Science and Technology, he was Coordinator of the Interdisciplinary Graduate Programs Area, and of the Environmental Sciences Graduate Programs Area. Formerly, he was member of CAPES Higher Council and Head of Evaluation. He was formerly Head of IBAMA, The Brazilian Environmental Protection Agency; Head of Department at CETESB, the State of São Paulo Environmental Protection Agency; Head of The City of São Paulo SVMA Environmental Planning and Education Department; Head of Brazilian MCT Science and Technology Program on Environmental Sciences. He was also Member of the ICLEI Executive Committee and President of the Institute of Science and Technology on Sustainable Development. Dr. Philippi is a Civil, Sanitary and Environmental Engineer, he holds a Master Degree on Public Health, a PhD on Environmental Health, a Post-Doctorate on Urban Studies and Planning. He completed his studies and expertise on waste management; industrial environmental pollution control and prevention; business and environment; and urban environmental planning and management, in several courses in USA, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Italy and Japan. He is also author and editor of books (49), book chapters (120) and published scientific papers (72) on environmental policy, planning and management, urban and regional planning, environmental sanitation, and sustainable indicators. He was finalist six times and has gotten three Jabuti Prizes from CBL-Brazilian Chamber of BooK. Updated on May, 2017.

Berenice Bilharinho de Mendonça (School of Medicine / FM-USP) - "Development and Dissemination of Educational Material to Improve the Diagnosis and Treatment of Disorders of Sex Development (DSDs) in Brazil"

She holds a medical degree from the Federal University of Triângulo Mineiro (1973), and a master's degree (1981) and a doctorate (1984) in Endocrinology and Metabology from USP. Full Professor at the Department of Clinical Medicine of the School of Medicine (FM-USP). Mendonça is a clinical researcher in the area of developmental endocrinology, covering a clinical and molecular study of the disorders of sexual determination and differentiation, growth and puberty, and in the area of adrenal hypo- and hyperfunction with focus on steroidogenesis and tumorigenism. She is responsible for the structuring and development of the Laboratory of Hormones and Molecular Genetics, and is a researcher supported by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq). She has published more than 394 papers in national and international journals.

Frederico Azevedo da Costa Pinto (School of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science / FMVZ-USP) - "Modern Man: An Animal Socially Deprived of the Right to Become Sick"

He has graduated in veterinary medicine from USP's FMVZ (1995), with specialization in experimental pathology (1996). He was a researcher for Johnson & Johnson Worldwide in the United States in 1997. Costa Pinto holds a master's degree (2000) and a PhD (2004) in experimental and comparative pathology from USP. He conducted postdoctoral studies at the Laboratory of Behavioral Pharmacology of the Louisiana State University (2002) and at the FMVZ Neuroimmunomodulation Group (2005). He is currently a PhD Professor at the FMVZ. His experience in general pathology has emphasis on experimental pathology. From 2011 to 2013, he held postdoctoral studies at the Rockefeller University in New York.

Gilson Schwartz (Department of Film, Radio and TV at the School of Communication and Arts / CTR-ECA-USP) - "MIL CLICKS: Playful Monetization, Liquid City and Digital Disruptions in Contemporary Value Theory"

He holds a degree in Economics (1980) and in Social Sciences (1981) from the University of São Paulo, a master's degree (1985) and a PhD (1993) in Economic Science from the State University of Campinas. He developed post-doctoral activities as a visiting professor of the Research Centre for International Relations (NUPRI-USP) between 1997 and 1999, and at the IEA (1999-2005). He is a professor of the Department of Cinema, Radio and TV of USP's School of Communications and Arts since 2005. He is a lecturer in Audiovisual Economics since 2015. He was a fellow of the Institute of Developing Economies at the Ministry of Industry and International Trade of Japan, and at the Network Culture Project of the Annenberg School for Communications, University of Southern California. He worked as a columnist, editorialist and economic analyst of the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo between 1983 and 2006. In 1999, after a selection process of the IEA, he created the research group "City of Knowledge". The project received the "Top 30" award from the Development Gateway Foundation in 2006. Schwartz has professional experience in economics and finance, acting as a consultant of financial institutions. He works on the following topics: global financial system, technological trends, creative industries, inclusion and digital emancipation, strategic management of knowledge and intangible assets, video games and education, gamification trends and internet of things.

Kátia Rubio (School of Physical Education and Sport / EEFE-USP) - "The Influence of National Displacements and Transnational Migration in the Formation of the Identity of Brazilian Olympic Athletes"

Rubio is currently a professor at the School of Physical Education and Sport (EEFE-USP). She holds a bachelor's degree in Journalism from the Cásper Líbero School of Social Communication (1983), and a degree in Psychology from the Pontifical Catholic University (PUC) in São Paulo (1995). Master (1998) and doctor (2001) in Physical Education from the EEFE-USP. She holds a postdoctoral degree in Social Psychology from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Coordinator of the Group of Olympic Studies (GEO-EEFE) and of the Center for Sociocultural Studies of the Human Movement (CESC-EEFE), Rubio has published 24 books in the field of sports psychology and olympic studies. She is a member of the Brazilian Olympic Academy.

Marisa Midori Deaecto (School of Communication and Arts / CTR-ECA / ECA-USP) - "Democratic Idolatry or Impossible Equality: A Study on the Reception of François Guizot in Brazil (1848-1860)"

Deaecto is a professor at the Department of Journalism and Publishing of USP's School of Communications and Arts (ECA). She is accredited by the Post-Graduate Program in Economic History of USP's Faculty of Philosophy, Languages and Literature, and Human Sciences (FFLCH). She spent time as a guest professor at the Labex-Transfers at École Normale Supérieure Paris in 2017 and at the Chair of History and Civilization of the Book, EPHE-Paris, in 2013. She graduated in History from FFLCH-USP, where she obtained the titles of master (2000) and doctor (2006) in Economic History. She completed a research internship at EHESS-Paris and at Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin en Yvelines (2004). Her research focus is on economics and urban culture, having published books and articles on this subject. Coordinator of the History of Editing and the Practices of Reading in Brazil (19th and 20th centuries) Study Group. Member of the Board of Directors of the National History Association between 2009 and 2011. Counselor of the Library Commission of ECA-USP. Winner of the 'Sergio Buarque de Holanda' Award of the National Library Foundation in the category Best Essay of the Year of 2011. Winner of the Jabuti Prize - 1st. Place in the Communication category in 2011. Publisher of 'LIVRO', which is the journal of USP's Center for Studies of the Book and Edition. Author of the blog Bibliomania.

Stelio Marras (Institute of Brazilian Studies / IEB-USP) - "Anthropology and Environment: Another Otherness, New Covenants"

Stelio Marras is a professor and researcher in Anthropology at USP's Institute of Brazilian Studies (IEB). He holds a bachelor degree in Social Sciences, and Master and Ph.D. degrees in Anthropology, all from the Faculty of Philosophy, Languages and Literature, and Human Sciences (FFLCH-USP). He is an adviser to the Graduate Program in Brazilian Cultures and Identities, and ad hoc adviser and co-orientator at the Department of Social Anthropology of FFLCH.  Marras has experience in Anthropology, working mainly in Anthropology of Science and Technology, Anthropology of Nature and Modernity, Post-Disciplinary Studies in Multispecies and Cosmopolitics, Anthropology and the Environment, as well as Anthropological Theory. He is the coordinator of the Post-Disciplinary Laboratory of Studies IEB / LaBieb / USP (LAPOD) and researcher of the Center for Amerindian Studies (CESTA-USP).

Diogo Rosenthal Coutinho (Faculty of Law / FD-USP) - "Uncertainty and legal barriers to innovation in Brazil"

A professor at the Department of Economic and Financial Law of USP's Faculty of Law, Coutinho will develop the research project "Uncertainty and legal barriers to innovation in Brazil," which will last 12 months. The project will discuss the roles of law in public policies and public-private relations in the field of innovation in Brazil. It is based on the premise that in order to foster innovation it is necessary to design, structure and articulate legal-institutional arrangements and contractual instruments capable of effectively coordinating key actors such as the State, companies and entrepreneurs, and universities. Coutinho will work with the hypothesis that despite a series of advances in legislation law can still be considered part of the set of "bottlenecks" to innovation in the country. At the end of the research, he intends to produce two academic articles, one in Portuguese and one in English.

Fabíola Andréa Silva (Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology / MAE-USP) - "Ethnography of Archaeology: an Interdisciplinary Study on the Use of Ethnographic Data in the Production of Archaeological Knowledge"

A professor and researcher at USP's Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Silva will conduct research at the IEA for 12 months. With the project "Ethnography of Archaeology: an Interdisciplinary Study on the Use of Ethnographic Data in the Production of Archaeological Knowledge," she will seek to demonstrate and analyze the contribution of ethnographic practice to the production of archaeological knowledge in the Americas. Her research project is divided into two parts: 1. critical review of the bibliography on the use of ethnographic data and ethnographic practice in archaeological interpretation; 2. enforcement of an ethnographic practice in the context of an archaeological investigation. Silva will seek to understand how ethnography is entangled in archaeological practices, and how ethnographic data has contributed, over time, to archaeological interpretations of materiality.

Fausto Roberto Poço Viana (School of Communication and Arts / ECA-USP) - "Dressing the contemporary scene: Brazilian clothing from before 1500 until the end of the seventeenth century"

Fausto Roberto Poço Viana (ECA-USP) A professor at the Department of Performing Arts of USP's School of Communications and Arts, Viana will carry out the project "Dressing the contemporary scene: Brazilian clothing from before 1500 until the end of the seventeenth century," which will last 12 months and is already being developed by him. He will address the identification, creation, modeling and confection of costumes made or woen in Brazil from before 1500 to 1890. The research is focused on the work of the performing arts, notably the creation of scene costumes, both the realistic and the experimental ones, and artistic recreations. The researcher will study the historical background, life in society, fabrics, clothing and suits, trade and production of textiles, if any, different materials and adornments / props used, colors of fabrics, costumes and body painting, forms of sewing and confection of the costumes and categorization in Brazil of that time. During the sabbatical program, Viana intends to organize an electronic portal to organize research data and their products, a sort of a virtual museum.

Geciane Silveira Porto (School of Economics, Business and Accounting in Ribeirão Preto / FEARP-USP) - "Evolution of cooperation networks and emerging technologies in the biotechnology segments: an application of Ars Dynamics in patents"

A professor at the FEARP-USP, Porto works in the areas of innovation management and entrepreneurship. At the IEA, she will carry out a 12-month research project entitled "Evolution of cooperation networks and emerging technologies in the biotechnology segments: an application of Ars Dynamics in patents." The study aims to analyze the evolution of the technological efforts of the biotechnology sector in Brazil and in the world, applying the technique of analysis of dynamic social networks to build cooperation networks among companies, universities and research institutes, as well as to map the technological routes that have resulted in the development of patented inventions in the biotechnology segments of these networks. Porto hopes to map the main players, the promising technologies and their target markets in the last 20 years, and to verify the insertion of the Brazilian actors in the respective collaborative networks, which will allow to monitor the trends of emerging technologies.

Gladys Beatriz Barreyro (School of Arts, Sciences and Humanities / EACH-USP) - "Internationalization of Higher Education: Use of Rankings"

A professor at EACH-USP, Barreyro works in the area of education, especially with policies and evaluation of higher education, at the global, regional and national levels. She will carry out the six-month research project "Internationalization of Higher Education: Use of rankings," which will investigate the impact of the results of Brazilian universities in international rankings, focusing on two institutions: the University of São Paulo (USP) and the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP). Among her goals, Barreyro wants to investigate if and what transformations these rankings have generated in institutional identity and in the purposes of teaching, research and extension.

Maria Helena Pereira Toledo Machado (Faculty of Philosophy, Languages and Literature, and Human Sciences / FFLCH-USP) - "The story of a black curator in São Paulo from slavery to post-emancipation (João de Camargo - 1858-1942)"

A professor at the Department of History of USP's Faculty of Philosophy, Languages and Literature, and Human Sciences (FFLCH), Machado specializes in the social history of slavery, abolition and post-emancipation. At the IEA, she will conduct research with the 12-month project 'The story of a black curator in São Paulo from slavery to post-emancipation (João de Camargo - 1858-1942),' which intends to elaborate a biography of the popular slave-born curator João de Camargo, of Sorocaba, in the countryside of the State of São Paulo, founder of the 'Nosso Senhor do Bonfim da Água Vermelha' Church. The focus is on the recovery of his cult and healing practices, seeking to also understand the reasons that justify the survival of this cult to the present time. Thus, Machado hopes to contribute to the deepening of the understanding in the area of the history of culture and the history of religions, as well as the role played by Afro and Afrodescendent cults in the addressed period.

Arturo Forner-Cordero (Polytechnic School / EP-USP) - "Modeling of the Biological Motor Control System from Engineering"

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.

Dennis de Oliveira (School of Communications and Arts / ECA-USP) - "Insurgent Outskirts: the Culture and Communication Collectives in the Peripheries of São Paulo"

For six months, Dennis de Oliveira will work on the research project "Insurgent Projects: 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."

Eduardo Benedicto Ottoni (Institute of Psychology / IP-USP) - "Evolutionary Approaches to 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* (School of Arts, Sciences and Humanities / EACH-USP) - "Migrant Brazil: Population Flows, Public Policies and State Structures"

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."

*Regrettably, Professor Araújo did not even begin to develop his research project, having died on January 31, 2019.

Marco Antonio Bettine de Almeida (School of Arts, Sciences and Humanities / EACH-USP) - "Soft Power: A Look at the Strategic Use of BRICS Hosting the FIFA World Cup - Analysis of South Africa, Brazil and Russia"

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.

Mauricio Pietrocola Pinto de Oliveira (School of Education / FE-USP) - "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."

Rogério Bastos Arantes (Faculty of Philosophy, Languages and Literature, and Human Sciences / FFLCH-USP) - "Political Corruption and Organized Crime in Brazil"

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.

Directors of the IEA and board members host the professors on sabbatical

At the first meeting of researchers on sabbatical, held on January 7, the professors presented a brief summary of their projects and talked about their expectations for the program.

Mathematics, music, art history, archeology, sociology, oceanography and the interfaces of these with many other disciplines are some of the research areas of the sabbatical period in 2016. The studies will result in the publication of works such as books, public policy proposals or artistic works.

The initiative is unprecedented at USP and the Brazilian academic environment. By having the institutional and financial support of the University's Dean of Research, which will allocate a specific amount of aid for each selected proposal, the program will allow the selected professors to leave their original educational units in order to develop their individual projects.

In addition to the researchers, the meeting has been attended by the director and deputy director of the IEA, professors Martin Grossmann and Paulo Saldiva; USP's provost for research, Professor José Eduardo Krieger; journalist Eugenio Bucci, member of the Institute's board and a professor of USP's School of Communications and Arts (ECA); and Hamilton Brandão Varela de Albuquerque, vice-coordinator of IEA's São Carlos Center, technical adviser to the office of USP's Dean of Research and a professor at the Institute of Chemistry in São Carlos.

On their first meeting, the researchers talked about their projects and expectations for the sabbatical year

The researchers and their projects

Professor Flávio Ulhoa Coelho, from USP's Institute of Mathematics and Statistics, was the first to present his topic of study: "History of Algebraic Thinking and its Didactic Splits." "There is a moment of rupture between the concrete and the abstract in the history of algebraic thinking, with philosophical developments that impact our societies. Until today, this has not been very well studied and with this program it will be possible to deepen this subject," he said.

Dária Gorete Jaremtchuk, a professor at the School of Arts, Sciences and Humanities (EACH-USP), spoke about her work "Artistic Exile: Movement of Brazilian Artists to New York during the 1960s and 1970s" via videoconference. "I started wanting to understand that movement of our artists to the United States and I was led by the findings. The work has grown to unexpected directions. I needed to study the Cold War, cultural diplomacy, diplomatic relations and other subjects. This sabbatical will be a good opportunity to consolidate these studies," Jaremtchuk said.

Lúcia Maciel Barbosa de Oliveira, a professor at USP's School of Communications and Arts (ECA), believes that there is a mismatch between academy theories about the current artistic scene and the dynamics of cultural movements involving especially youngsters and new technologies. To understand the subject, she proposes to study the "Contemporary Cultural Dynamics: Overlapping of Singularities, Collectives, Technologies and Cultural Institutions in the Common Perspective". "The time for research demands a dreamy thought, which then shapes into something more concrete. But this is a little bit on the side of everyday life and I believe that it will be possible to exercise this dream during this sabbatical period. Interaction with people from different areas will be very important and I believe the program consolidates the IEA as an interdisciplinary interaction platform," she says.

To consolidate data from several surveys conducted throughout the career is also the goal of Maria de los Angeles Gasalla, from USP's Institute of Oceanography (IO), during her sabbatical leave. She will develop the study "The Future of marine-dependent societies: climate change, innequalities and cooperation in complex socio-ecological systems". According to Gasalla, there are many data generated from previous studies; diverse issues between natural, social and physical sciences; models for natural populations and the researcher's own experience with people who depend on the sea for their livelihoods. "I have drawn incredible knowledge of the fishermen's experience of the sea and learned a great deal about the social and cultural aspects of these communities. I will be able to develop a deeper reflection on the future of ocean-dependent societies in view of the scenarios of climate change impacts," she said. For the professor, it is feasible to establish relations on the context of inequalities in Latin America and the cooperation that emerges as social technology for the benefit of the planet. "The goals of the research are ambitious, but I believe that it will be possible to achieve them due to the time this program gives us."

A former professor of the School of Arts, Sciences and Humanities (EACH-USP), and current professor of the Museum of Archeology and Ethnology (MAE), Astolfo Gomes de Mello Araújo proposes archeology as a case study to understand interdisciplinarity. "We see that interdisciplinarity in the University does not really exist. I saw it happen at EACH, but overall it is still very much shallow. Archeology is the most interdisciplinary field I know and my idea is to scrutinize the process vision and how this discipline operates in time and space," said Araújo. "Ontology and epistemology of an (inter)discipline: Archaeology as a Paradigm of Interdisciplinarity and its Theoretical and Practical Implications" is the title of Araújo's work, who sees in the experience of the sabbatical year program the opportunity "to think new things." For him, acting in an interdisciplinary way "is the possibility of returning to a context similar to what I had at EACH," he said.

Professor Rodolfo Nogueira Coelho de Souza, a civil engineer from USP's Polytechnic School (POLI), ended up directing his career to music. He is a professor at the Music Department of the Faculty of Philosophy of Literature at the USP campus in Ribeirão Preto. He will develop the project "Invention of an Opera: Pascal's machine in Pernaguá". Coelho de Souza says that his invention is still a work of research. He will work on set theory looking for an algorithmic composition that is not motivated by human desire. However, human desire is projected into music through something abstract, which is the algorithm. The way to do this is to operate in the cinematographic dimension, making sound clippings, he said. "Few operas have been composed in a year and I know the project is ambitious. But it is the chance to develop more creative and technological, and essentially interdisciplinary work. It is like a dream to have a place where interdisciplinarity is well seen, unlike what happens in our departments," he said.

“Out of the box”

For IEA's director Martin Grossmann, the experience of the sabbatical program represents the discovery of a "missing link with the Dean of Research". The institutional relationship of these units comes to exist concretely with the support given by the provost to the program. In addition, the presence of Professor Hamilton Varela, who is an adviser to the Dean of Research and chair of IEA's Research Committee, is helping to structure that relationship, he said.

José Eduardo Krieger, Paulo Saldiva and Hamilton Varela

The provost for research, José Eduardo Krieger, recalled the importance of "inductive mechanisms to make think outside the box, or outside the comfort environment." Providing support and contributing with resources even in times of crisis is something managers need to see to enable even more important advancements than routine allows, Krieger said.

The institutes of advanced studies founded in various universities around the world in recent years represent an experimental tip; a transdisciplinary attempt and an outpost by definition, which runs "very interesting risks" precisely because of their methods and approaches, said journalist Eugênio Bucci, who is a member of the IEA's Board and responsible for the Superintendence of Social Communication (SCS) of USP.

"The necessary innovation and experimentation need to be considered at a time when the university in Brazil and in the world rethinks its role. We have to think about the next decades, what relationship the university will have with society and in what perspectives it will contribute to the future. The IEA is a fringe of contact with the future. You need to get out of disciplinary rigor and try different paths," said Bucci.

IEA's deputy director recalled the variety of topics covered at the IEA. "Particle physics, water, philosophy, urbanity, the Amazon, well, everything happens here. I come from a very dense, relatively monothematic area. In contrast, the IEA is very free and independent. And freedom is fascinating, but it is frightening. You who now start the sabbatical year will have the chance to give the program a keynote. Complex systems are now dominating the real world. Maybe the IEA could become a point where a real-world exercise is possible," said Saldiva.

Regina Pekelmann Markus, a member of the Institute's Board and of the Scientific Committee which has coordinated the work of the Intercontinental Academia, said the sabbatical "rest" is "loaded of clouds; a way to carry dreams forward." For the scientist, "it is good to have a provost who believes we have to work outside the box."

Faced with the difficulties of instrumentalizing and practicing transdisciplinarity, perhaps the IEA can be a platform capable of adapting to this approach, because it is an "institute of free thinking, without frontiers or departments," said Varela.

Photos: Mauro Bellesa/IEA