Strong centres: DWIH São Paulo
German Houses of Research and Innovation promote the internationalisation of science and research around the world.
There is no way around business in São Paulo. There the DWIH is based in the Santo Amaro business district: anyone who enters the building of the German-Brazilian Chamber of Industry and Commerce immediately sees the DWIH logo. “That’s already led several visitors to spontaneously call at our office,” says DWIH Coordinator Marcio Weichert. He doesn’t need to rely on luck, however: the DWIH coordinated the entire research programme of the Germany Year in Brazil in 2013/2014, during which the Max Planck Science Tunnel exhibition alone attracted 40,000 visitors. The DWIH combines the expertise of nine partners, and the University Alliance Ruhr and UAS7, an association of research-oriented German universities of applied sciences, also represent a total of ten higher education institutions.
“São Paulo is the leading research centre in Latin America and also Germany’s largest industrial location abroad with roughly 1,000 German companies,” emphasises Martina Schulze, the DAAD’s highest ranking representative in Brazil and DWIH Director in São Paulo. She believes there are good prospects for an intensification of bilateral scientific and technological cooperation, one of the main goals of the DWIH: “With our partner organisations we cover the entire range from basic to applied research. Furthermore, the DAAD is the German partner of Science Without Borders, the Brazilian scholarship programme with a budget of billions.”
