Last Decem­ber, a del­e­ga­tion from UTC made a mem­o­rable vis­it to Brazil, in the state of Paraná. A chance to cel­e­brate the col­lab­o­ra­tion and define projects for the future.

Prof. Claire Rossi, accom­pa­nied by Joan­na Daaboul, Direc­tor of Inter­na­tion­al Rela­tions, Pierre-Hen­ri Dejean, emer­i­tus lec­tur­er-cum-research sci­en­tist at the UTC-Rober­val lab­o­ra­to­ry, Pas­cal Alber­ti, lec­tur­er-cum­re­search sci­en­tist at the COSTECH lab­o­ra­to­ry, Gilles Morel, lec­tur­er-cum-research sci­en­tist at the AVENUES lab­o­ra­to­ry, and Max Schaeg­ger, for­mer pro­fes­sor and DRI of UTC, paid a vis­it to sev­er­al part­ners in Brazil from Decem­ber 1 to 6, 2024, on the occa­sion of the cel­e­bra­tion of 40 years of col­lab­o­ra­tion between UTC and the State of Paraná. The vis­it began with the sign­ing of a strate­gic agree­ment with the Araucária Foun­da­tion, aimed at offer­ing finan­cial sup­port to Brazil­ian stu­dents, doc­tor­al stu­dents and post-doc­tor­al stu­dents wish­ing to study at UTC. The meet­ing with Ramiro Wahrhaftig, pres­i­dent of the foun­da­tion, proved to be extreme­ly reward­ing. “UTC has played an unde­ni­able role in the devel­op­ment of the high­er edu­ca­tion land­scape in the state of Paraná. Cours­es have been cre­at­ed with UTC, and the cur­rent teach­ing team includes many UTC alum­ni,” recalls Joan­na Daaboul.

UTFPR- Paraná (Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná) has evolved according to the UTC model

The del­e­ga­tion also vis­it­ed three part­ner uni­ver­si­ties, notably with the rec­tor Ever­ton Lozano of the Uni­ver­si­dade Tec­nológ­i­ca Fed­er­al do Paraná (UTFPR) to dis­cuss future col­lab­o­ra­tion projects and sign a new frame­work agree­ment paving the way for new col­lab­o­ra­tions in teach­ing, research and inno­va­tion with the rec­tor Ricar­do Alexan­der Marce­lo Fon­se­ca. UTC and UFPR- Paraná have been part­ners for 40 years, but this part­ner­ship goes beyond col­lab­o­ra­tion between insti­tu­tions. It is also based on UTC alum­ni who are pio­neers of inno­va­tion at UFPR and founders of depart­ments, such as Pro­fes­sor Car­los Ricar­do Soc­col. In 1997, he found­ed the Depart­ment of Bio­process Engi­neer­ing and Biotech­nol­o­gy and the School of Bio­process Engi­neer­ing and Biotech­nol­o­gy (EBB). EBB’s achieve­ments include more than 600 jour­nal arti­cles, 38 books, 220 book chap­ters and around 150 patent claims (40 of which have been grant­ed). Around 40% of its pro­fes­sors are among the top 2% of sci­en­tists in the world. “This col­lab­o­ra­tion is tes­ti­mo­ny to UTC’s inno­v­a­tive vision since its incep­tion in 1972, when it was affirmed that sci­ence and ped­a­gogy have no fron­tiers, and even though we were a young uni­ver­si­ty, because at the time we had only been in exis­tence for 12 years, we dared to cre­ate strong inter­na­tion­al col­lab­o­ra­tions,” adds Joan­na Daaboul. Today, UTC aspires to remain an inspir­ing mod­el with a vision that is not lim­it­ed by inter­na­tion­al borders.”

Drawing up a roadmap for the next 10 years

The first exchange stu­dent at UTC from the state of Paraná comes from UFPR. His name is Rob­son Rocha, and he is now an exec­u­tive at Renault Curiti­ba. UTC and UFPR- Paraná share a vision to become key play­ers in envi­ron­men­tal tran­si­tion. In this con­text, the del­e­ga­tion was able to vis­it the sus­tain­able ener­gy research and devel­op­ment cen­tre, which includes tech­nolo­gies based on microal­gae and inno­va­tions in bioen­er­gy. This cen­tre is coor­di­nat­ed by Pro­fes­sor José Viri­a­to Coel­ho Var­gas. The del­e­ga­tion also explored the inno­v­a­tive tech­nol­o­gy plat­forms of the “ecov­ille” cam­pus. Dur­ing the vis­it to the Pon­ti­f­i­cia Uni­ver­si­dade Católi­ca do Paraná (PUCPR-Paraná), a meet­ing with the rec­tor Ir. Rogério Mateuc­ci led to the sign­ing of two new dou­ble degrees in com­put­er engi­neer­ing and mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing. The vis­it to the XR Cen­tre, which hous­es aug­ment­ed and vir­tu­al real­i­ty tech­nolo­gies and where inter­dis­ci­pli­nar­i­ty is empha­sized by all the projects requir­ing exper­tise in art, engi­neer­ing and ped­a­gogy, was enrich­ing, as was the vis­it to the Hot­milk cen­tre, which hosts com­pa­nies and start-ups and sup­ports stu­dents in their entre­pre­neur­ial endeav­ours. Prof. Claire Rossi was able to vis­it the Renault fac­to­ry in Curiti­ba and on this occa­sion meet Con­sul Gen­er­al Alexan­dra Mias, as well as Car­los Sér­gio Asinel­li and Ger­mano Fer­raz Paciornik, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Cham­ber of Com­merce. A moment of shar­ing bring­ing togeth­er all UTC alum­ni, now exec­u­tives in this fac­to­ry, pro­vid­ed an oppor­tu­ni­ty to dis­cuss pos­si­ble new col­lab­o­ra­tions with Renault, an impor­tant indus­tri­al part­ner of UTC. The vis­it end­ed with a gala to cel­e­brate 40 years of col­lab­o­ra­tion with the State of Paraná, to which all UTC alum­ni present on site were invit­ed, as well as sev­er­al dignitaries.

International mobility

On the occa­sion of the cel­e­bra­tions of four decades of coop­er­a­tion between Paraná and UTC in France, the Araucária Foun­da­tion for­malised a coop­er­a­tion agree­ment for inter­na­tion­al mobil­i­ty through the pro­gram #Gan­han­dooMundo­da­Cien­cia! There will be 50 places avail­able: 46 for under­grad­u­ate stu­dents, 2 for doc­tor­al stu­dents and 2 for post-doc­tor­al researchers. The mobil­i­ty pro­grams will last up to six months, with an addi­tion­al month devot­ed to immer­sion in the French language.

KD