commentary Brazilian science towards a phase transition Ado Jorio, Francisco César de Sá Barreto, José Francisco de Sampaio and Hélio Chacham The historical trajectory of materials science in Brazil shows the fast establishment of a high-quality, sizeable and productive scientific community. It is now time for a change in attitude towards real innovation and excellence. he Amazon forest covers about 40% attributed to ancient agricultural activity Pesquisa Agropecuária are well financed of the Brazilian territory, an area by former Amazonian civilizations5. and ideally structured to deal with the Tabout 6.5 times larger than France. Among the unusual aspects of the black scientific and technological issues related There, a very rich ecosystem exists in a soil is a high amount of carbon, up to to the Amazon region and agriculture, metastable equilibrium on a generally 70 times more than is present in other respectively, having held many research poor soil base, which makes deforestation soils. Understanding the structure of these programmes and organized national and a very serious problem. However, a rather carbon materials, the way they have been international meetings on Indian Black frequent and interesting phenomenon formed and their role in keeping the soil Earth. It is also important to mention the can be found in the region, the so-called productive over a long period of time are considerable impact made by publications Terra Preta de Índio, or Indian Black Earth necessary questions to be answered so that written by Brazilian researhers on related (Fig. 1). This soil can be distinguished such soil can eventually be reproduced in subjects, for example on carbon materials. from other types by its black colour and a laboratory. A simple crosslinked search using the ISI by its unusually high productivity1,2. It It would be natural for Brazilian Web of Science database between the words has produced much more vigorous and researchers to have a highly visible role in ‘carbon’ and ‘Brazil’ yields around 9,000 nutritious crops and fruits than any other this subject area. Brazilian institutes such publications with over 100,000 citations. soil in the region over a much longer as the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da However, despite all this investment and usage time3,4, and its formation is generally Amazônia and the Empresa Brasileira de effort, no Brazilian paper in the field ab FRENCH Boa Vista SURINAM COLOMBIA GUYANA GUYANA VENEZUELA Atlantic Ocean Tr Jari o o mber anc Pa Macapá ru Rio Negro as Rio Br 4 Japur á 1 Manaus Belém Amaz 3 Santarém Fonte onas Boa 2 5 a Canumá Maraba Madeir Juruá BRAZITapajos L Purus Humaitá u ng Xi Porto Velho a Rio Branco Guajará guai a Mirim cantins Ar To PERU BOLIVIA Figure 1 | Materials science in the jungle. a,b, The Terra Preta do Índio (a) can be found in different locations in Amazonia b( ), with marked regions shown on the map6. Open squares represent principal known Terra Preta sites, and filled squares show the locations of Terra Preta sites. Part a is reproduced courtesy of Newton Falcão, from the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazonia; part b is reproduced with permission from ref. 6. 528 NATURE MATERIALS | VOL 9 | JULY 2010 | www.nature.com/naturematerials © 2010 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved nmat_2790_JUL10.indd 528 11/6/10 12:03:30 commentary has appeared in a high-impact journal ab such as Nature or Science. The case of the 1,000 Terra Preta de Índio is a typical example 200,000 of science in Brazil, characterized by solid 800 and important work and that only needs a 150,000 600 change in attitude to reach the top level of 100,000 excellence in results. 400 Building science from scratch 50,000 200 Brazilian history in science and innovation with worldwide impact 0 0 started only in the early twentieth 1960 1970 1980 1990 20002010 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 century with Alberto Santos Dumont and Year Year Carlos J. R. Chagas. Santos Dumont, the son of a wealthy family of coffee producers, Figure 2 | Brazilian science in the literature. a, Total number of Brazilian publications per decade. lived most of his life in Paris, where he b, Number of Brazilian publications in journals with the word ‘materials’ in the journal’s name. Each bar developed the first practical dirigible represents the number of papers published over a five-year period. The data are taken from the ISI Web balloons, flying around the Eiffel Tower of Science database. in 1901. He also performed the first ever public flight of an aeroplane in 1906, with his ‘No. 14-bis’ aircraft. Chagas, also these initiatives, the number of Brazilian Economic growth and investments the son of coffee farmers, worked at the publications (as registered in the ISI Web According to the International Monetary Oswaldo Cruz Institute in Rio de Janeiro. of Science) grew exponentially from Fund, in 2009 Brazil was among the ten There, and in the Brazilian hinterlands, 19 between 1960–1970 to more than richest countries in the world (Fig. 3a). he discovered in 1909 the Chagas disease. 200,000 in this past decade (Fig. 2a). However, when the gross domestic product His work is almost unique in the history Brazilian research in condensed-matter (GDP) is analysed per capita, the difference of medicine: he described the whole physics and materials science effectively between developed and developing infectious disease cycle — the parasite, the started in the late 1960s. A large supply nations is clearly shown (Fig. 3a, solid vector, the clinical manifestations and the of international credit resulted in huge line). Developed countries also show a epidemiology. The achievements of Chagas investments in infrastructure: federal higher percentage of GDP investment and Santos Dumont are still being felt freeways, hydroelectric and nuclear power in research and development (Fig. 3b). today: Chagas’s results are closely related to plants, oil extraction and refineries. At the This is the picture we hold today, after the the strong Brazilian research community same time, infrastructure for university turbulent twentieth century, a period when in epidemiology, while Santos Dumont’s research, focused mainly on natural Brazil oscillated between democracy and pioneering efforts helped to launch the sciences and engineering, also started dictatorship; from so-called economic highly successful Brazilian aerospace to be built up. Also worth mentioning miracles with average economic growth industry — Brazil’s Embraer is at present is the creation in 1966 of Universidade at 10% each year for many years in a row the third-largest aircraft producer in de Campinas and the establishment of to explosive inflations, reaching values as the world. research infrastructure in several federal high as 365% each year. It can be argued universities, as well as state universities in that Brazil achieved a healthy economic and São Paulo state. In the case of experimental political structure only in the early 1990s, The number of Brazilian condensed-matter research, the early and it has been maintaining it ever since. publications grew 1970s saw the setting up of research Nowadays, Brazil is a member of several departments in Universidade Federal de economic organizations such as Mercosul, exponentially from 19 Minas Gerais; Universidade Federal de the União de Nações Sul-Americanas, the between 1960–1970 to Pernambuco; Universidade de São Paulo; G8+5 and the G20, and has hundreds of Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, international commercial partners (25.9% more than 200,000 in this as well as others. In the 1970s and 1980s, coming from Latin America, 23.4% from past decade. the physics and chemistry departments at the EU, 18.9% from Asia, 14.0% from the those universities received large amounts United States and 17.8% from elsewhere). of federal grants — mainly through In the 2009 meeting of the World Economic It was only in 1951 that the Brazilian the Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos Forum in Davos, Brazil was considered government created the first two federal agency — to develop research the country with the largest increase in public agencies charged with the task in the growth and characterization of economic competitiveness. Brazil has of developing scientific research: the semiconductors and for the establishment a sophisticated technology sector, with Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento of optical, magnetic and other materials projects in aviation, submarines, space Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) had characterization techniques. This move research (Brazil is a member of the the aim of promoting and stimulating was essentially the origin of materials International Space Station), biofuels scientific and technological investigations. research in Brazil as a whole. From the (with an emphasis given to ethanol) and On the other hand, the Comissão de 1990s to the present time, this federal petroleum (73% of the petroleum used in Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível research financing system has been replaced the country is produced in Brazil itself). Superior (CAPES) was set up to develop by local state agencies and by federal However, Brazilian companies, with a few and improve human resources for financing of large specific projects and exceptions, still do not have their own teaching and research. As a result of research networks. research and development laboratories and NATURE MATERIALS | VOL 9 | JULY 2010 | www.nature.com/naturematerials 529 © 2010 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved nmat_2790_JUL10.indd 529 11/6/10 12:03:30 commentary are scarcely supporting university research. São Paulo (Laboratório Nacional de Ciência associated with the large income disparity. As a partial solution to this problem, e Tecnologia do Bioetanol; CTBE). The Although in 2003 Brazil spent R$18 billion the federal government has established first (CETENE) is part of a big project to (R$ is the Brazilian unit of currency, the ‘Fundos Setoriais’ — or sectoral induce stronger development in the poorest the real), in basic education, in 2010 the funds — system, which is based on the regions of Brazil (the north and northeast).