Vice-Chancellor's visit to Brazil, 19-23 August 2012
It was my great pleasure to visit Brazil for the first time as Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University and to have the opportunity to engage with so many partners, friends, alumni and others. The last Vice-Chancellor to have visited Brazil was Sir Colin Lucas and I was delighted to have the opportunity to highlight this important relationship through a - sadly too brief - visit in 2012.
After arriving late on Sunday 19th in São Paulo and recovering overnight from the ten-hour flight, we started our week with a trip to Rio de Janeiro to meet with potential partners and supporters, including BNDES, the Brazilian Development Bank. Hoping to build the number and depth of our collaborations in Brazil, I was pleased to have the opportunity to hear from Brazilian organisations and individuals about their priorities and to explore ways of working together.
Getting back to São Paulo late in the afternoon, we went straight to the striking Brazilian British Centre (Centro Britânico Brasileiro), home to Cultura Inglesa, the British Council and other British or Britain-focused organisations. The British Council had generously agreed to host Oxford’s Alumni Reception that evening. It was wonderful to be able to speak to so many Brazilian alumni - about 40 - and other friends of Oxford who attended (right, The VC addressing alumni and friends at the Brazilian British Centre in São Paulo). The evening was an opportunity to launch the new Oxford Business Alumni São Paulo chapter. It was inspiring to see the enthusiasm of local volunteers and I was pleased to be able to give my personal support to this venture. Leslie Bethell, former Director of the Centre for Brazilian Studies at Oxford, also spoke to assembled guests, again underlining the strong historic links between Oxford and Brazil.
On Tuesday 21st, we were hosted by the Fundação Estudar in their “Great Universities Cycle”. It was an honour to be given this platform and I was delighted to discover that we were the first non-US, non-Brazilian university to be featured in this series. The event took place at the building of FIESP (São Paulo’s State Industry Federation). I spoke to an audience of about 150 students, scholars, academics, media representatives and others, about what makes Oxford unique and why Oxford is a great place to study, to undertake research and to work. I highlighted Oxford’s intensive teaching methods and its international character, as well as its strong links with Brazil. Following my presentation, Professor Gordon Clark, incoming Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, gave a “Masterclass” (an opportunity to demonstrate a typical Oxford lecture – if there is such a thing!) on “Enterprise and the Environment in the Global Economy”. The event was rounded off by an “Alumni and Student Panel”, which allowed three alumni and one current student to tell the audience about their Oxford experience and about what study and life at Oxford is like. As well as the joy of studying with such excellent teachers and peers, they all reflected on the beauty and magic of Oxford and some even brought in references to the universally well-known Harry Potter to make their point!
After leaving the FIESP building, I had the pleasure of visiting Oxford University Press’s São Paulo office. It was wonderful to be able to chat to OUP’s staff and thank them for all the great work they do – especially in light of the expanding enterprise in Brazil, which is going from strength to strength. We then moved onto the University of São Paulo’s beautiful, leafy campus nearby to meet with the university’s Rector, Professor Joao Grandino Rodas, and colleagues. We talked about current and potential future collaborations and I look forward to working together in the months and years to come. I was then able to address about 80 current USP students - and many more in USP’s campuses across the state, as my presentation was being transmitted live throughout the university’s estate - to tell them about graduate study at Oxford and encourage them to consider applying to our University. I was delighted to be joined by two of our current students - Roberta Gregoli and Vinicius Rodrigues Vieira - on the podium after my presentation and together we were able to field the many insightful and thoughtful questions.
Tuesday’s very busy schedule was rounded off with an absolutely spectacular dinner hosted by one of our most supportive alumni and a Campaign co-Chair, Antonio Bonchristiano. He had arranged his dining room in the style of an Oxford college formal hall, which was the perfect setting in which to tell assembled guests about the University and its plans in Brazil and beyond.
On Wednesday 22nd August we travelled to Brazil’s capital, Brasília, for a good range of meetings with government representatives. We met with the Secretary for Higher Education, Mr Amaro Henrique Pessoa Lins, at the Ministry of Education, with the International Advisor Ambassador Carlos Henrique Cardim at the Ministry of Sport and with the Deputy Secretary for Technological Development and Innovation, Professor Adalberto Fazzio, at the Ministry for Science, Technology and Innovation. A variety of topics was covered in each meeting and we look forward to starting the follow-up work to make collaborations happen. After being kindly hosted for lunch at the British Embassy, we went to the CNPq (The National Council for Scientific and Technological Development) headquarters to meet with its President, Professor Glaucius Oliva, and colleagues. We signed a letter of intent aiming for an agreement which will see CNPq fully funding up to 13 scholarships a year – both Undergraduate and Postgraduate – for Brazilian students coming to Oxford in the Sciences and Medical Sciences (right, Professor Glaucius Oliva and Andrew Hamilton signing a Letter of Intent at CNPq headquarters in Brasília). We will enjoy working with CNPq and hope that a final agreement will follow later this month.
Our final day in Brazil – Thursday 23rd – was spent in São Paulo, meeting with journalists and potential supporters of Brazilian students, academics and projects at Oxford. We had a very fruitful conversation with the Executive Director of the Lemann Foundation – Mr Denis Mizne – and are looking to collaborating in several ways in the future.
Overall, it was an absolutely marvellous trip which gave me a real appreciation for the many deep and varied links we have with Brazil, in terms of research collaborations, academic visits, alumni and now also internships. Meeting with so many welcoming and engaging partners and friends was inspiring and I very much look forward to nurturing this thriving relationship over the months and years to come. I certainly think that the next Vice Chancellor’s visit to Brazil should take place a lot sooner than in ten years’ time!