Eduardo Geraque and Karina Toledo | FAPESP Agency – Carlos Henrique de Brito Cruz, scientific director of FAPESP, was elected chair of the Governing Board of the Global Research Council (GRC) – a type of board of directors for the institution. Brito Cruz replaced Vladislav Panchenko, president of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR), in Russia. The term of office will be one year.
Formed in 2012, the GRC brings together the heads of the world's leading research funding agencies, with the aim of promoting and sharing data and best practices for high-quality collaboration among its participants. The 2019 annual meeting will close this Friday (03/05), in São Paulo.
“Brito offered to host the meeting here in São Paulo. He has been a member of the Governing Board for some time and has now been elected chair for next year. It's an honor he deserves. We're excited about it, we think it will bring new energy. We all know he has a lot of good ideas,” said France Córdova, president of the National Science Foundation (NSF), in the United States.
“It is a decision that recognizes the importance of FAPESP in global terms. We have partnerships with the most important development agencies in the world”, said Brito Cruz.
Electronic engineer and physicist, Brito Cruz is a professor at the Gleb Wataghin Institute of Physics (IFGW) at the State University of Campinas (Unicamp), where he was rector from 2002 to 2005.
He graduated in electronic engineering from the Technological Institute of Aeronautics (ITA). He obtained his master's and doctor's degrees at IFGW, where he has taught since 1982. He is currently a full professor in the Department of Quantum Electronics.
Brito Cruz was a visiting researcher at the Quantum Optics Laboratory of the Universitá di Roma, the Femtosecond Research Laboratory of the Universitè Pierre et Marie Curie and a resident researcher at AT&T's Bell Laboratories in Holmdel, New Jersey.
At Unicamp, he was director of IFGW from 1991 to 1994 and from 1998 to 2002, pro-rector of Research from 1994 to 1998 and rector from 2002 to 2005. He was president of FAPESP from 1996 to 2002.
Brito Cruz is a member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He received the Ordre des Palmes Academiques from France, the Order of Scientific Merit from Brazil and the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2015.
According to Euclides de Mesquita Neto, deputy coordinator for Special Programs and Research Collaborations at FAPESP, “this is a leadership position within the Governing Board, which in turn is already made up of a group of leaders. There are three members elected from each of the five regions of the world, based on their capacity for representation and articulation," he said.
"It is a very important recognition, both for Professor Brito and for the work that FAPESP has done", says Mesquita Neto, who is a member of the GRC's executive support group (Executive Support Group).
More information about the 8th Annual Meeting of the Global Research Council: www.fapesp.br/eventos/grc.
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