Students experience Brazil first-hand

A two-week trip to South America’s largest country has enabled four Edinburgh students to discover Brazil for themselves.

The visit, which followed a similar trip by Brazilian students to Edinburgh, involved 40 students from nine of the UK’s top universities.

Students listened to lectures on a broad range of cultural, socio-political and ecological subjects and took part in cultural activities such as a football match and samba dancing, as well as social events with local people.

Our Brazil trip was a wonderful opportunity for students from Edinburgh to explore different cultures and experience a country with a dynamic and rapidly developing higher education sector. From exploring the Pinacoteca art gallery and the Portuguese Language Museum or being taught capoeira by an expert, our journey was truly unforgettable.

Dr Charlotte Hammond Matthews

Lecturer in Portuguese

The students visited Universidade Estadual de Campinas as well as Universidade de São Paulo, one of Latin America’s leading centres of research excellence.

Edinburgh has signed an institutional agreement with Universidade de São Paulo, aimed at strengthening links between the two institutions.

While in São Paulo, the students also visited Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer - the world’s third biggest ‘plane maker and Brazil’s biggest industrial exporter. They then moved onto the coastal resort of São Sebastião, where a traditional beach party was held.

The trip was made possible by the support of Santander Universities.

Edinburgh and Brazil

Links between the University of Edinburgh and Brazil are extensive and will be deepened further by the opening of an Office of the Americas in São Paolo in autumn 2012.

The University’s ties with Brazil range from geosciences partnerships to social science data collaborations and health education links.

Examples include our collaborative centre with Petrobras, Brazil’s national energy company.

The International Centre for Carbonate Reservoirs is a £1.8 million project that uses our world-class expertise to help address the challenge of extracting oil from carbonate reservoirs in offshore fields.

We also collaborate with the Centre for Metropolitan Studies, São Paolo, sharing data and methods in social science research.

In 2009, Edinburgh played a lead role in the delivering an educational programme for stem cell researchers in Brazil.

Scholarships

The University has an agreement with Santander Universities. It recently strengthened its partnership with Banco Santander to assist students from across Latin America to study at Edinburgh.

• Central and South American scholarships

This article was published on Mar 15, 2012