New cooperation agreement between FCT and Brazil's CNPq

Last November, FCT and the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), an entity linked to the Brazilian Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation and responsible for funding research in the areas of science and technology, began a new partnership aimed at sharing information and developing joint projects between the CIÊNCIAVITAE (Portuguese) and Lattes (Brazilian) curriculum management platforms. The video of the session at which the cooperation agreement was signed is available for viewing.

The fundamental aim of this protocol is to strengthen cooperation between Portugal and Brazil, continuing the sharing of experience and good practices and active cooperation in the field of normative references, infrastructures and science and technology management services. One of the first tasks will be to assess the compatibility of the CIÊNCIAVITAE and Lattes platforms, with a view to unifying the support software and eventually integrating the platforms.

Since 2014, the FCT has dedicated efforts and invested in the modernization of its information systems, recognizing that simplifying the procedures inherent in the administrative management of the science, technology and higher education ecosystem is fundamental to stimulating innovation and enabling the democratization of access to and production of knowledge. In this context, a new system was developed for managing funding applications - MyFCT - and the PTCRIS program was launched. Through the development of science and technology management standards and infrastructures, the aim is to guarantee, on the one hand, the reduction of bureaucracy and the simplification of administrative processes, and on the other, the production, management and access to reliable, complete and up-to-date data, as a tool to support the effectiveness and efficiency of decision-making processes. The first system entirely based on the PTCRIS regulations is CIÊNCIAVITAE, the national platform for managing science and technology curricula.

These processes involved collaboration with Brazil from an early stage. The DeGóis platform, CIÊNCIAVITAE's predecessor and on whose code it was based, was the result of an agreement for the use of Lattes in Portugal, signed in 2005. In addition to this, in 2014/2015 the FCT also established an agreement with the Brazilian Institute of Information in Science and Technology (IBICT) to share experiences and good practices. It is in this context of historic cooperation between two countries in this field that FCT signs this International Cooperation Agreement, with mutual benefit expected.

Both CIÊNCIAVITAE and Lattes are fundamental to the scientific and technological management of their respective countries, investing in the simplification and integration of processes. Lattes has been adopted by most of Brazil's funding institutions, universities and research institutes, making it possible to compile databases of personal CVs. Currently, Lattes includes more than 3.5 million CVs, research groups and institutions in a single information system. CIÊNCIAVITAE, based on the concept of scientific citizenship (CIÊNCIA ID), was created in the form of an integrated and personalized repository of researchers' journeys in science, bringing together various national and international information management systems, making it possible to minimize the burden of bureaucratic processes and comply with the principle of "introduce once, reuse many times", while also giving the possibility of personalizing and promoting CVs.

The integration of the curricular management platforms of Portugal and Brazil is a possibility of mutual interest to FCT and CNPq, and could lead to the development of a joint, highly collaborative system between Portuguese-speaking countries.