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From International Research Internships to Joint Projects for Research Staff Mobility

Since 2009 the Federal Institute of Santa Catarina (IF-SC) has developed PROPICIE, a program oriented for internships of their students in R&D groups in Europe. The Polytechnic Institute of Porto (IPP) has been the Higher Education Institution that received more internships from PROPICIE Program (37 students, around half of the total number).
This close contact between students, teaching and research staff from IF-SC with some of the most active R&D groups of IPP has been one of the main reasons for the involvement of IF-SC in an application coordinated by IPP for a Research Project for the Mobility of Research Staff between Europe and Brazil. This application resulted in the selection of the project ELECON – “Electricity Consumption Analysis to Promote Energy Efficiency Considering Demand Response and Non-technical Losses (www.elecon.ipp.pt)” to be funded by the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme in the aims of the People Programme (Marie Curie Actions).
With a budget of 445.200,00 euros the project is allowing a total number of 212 months of mobility between Europe and Brazil, in both sides. The consortium coordinated by IPP involves two other European Institutions (the Polytechnic of Grenoble – INPG- in France, and the Otto von Guericke University of Magdeburg - OVGU- in Germany) and four Brazilian Institutions (IF-SC; University of São Paulo – USP, University of the State of São Paulo – UNESP, and Federal University of Santa Catarina – UFSC).
The project started in October 2012 and is giving several scientific results in the fields of Smart Grids and Energy Efficiency. Recently, the coordinator of the project, Zita Vale, has been selected as the European Expert on Smart Grids for a project of Sector Dialogues Europe-Brazil in the area of Smart Grids, a project promoted by the European Union and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation of Brazil. Her experience in the work with Brazilian institutions in the aims of ELECON project has been the main reason for this invitation that resulted in several reports that will drive the policies on Smart Grids for Brazil.
In this paper we will describe more in detail this experience between the Federal Institute of Santa Catarina and the Polytechnic of Porto in PROPICIE program and ELECON project, trying to prove that this kind of cooperation is essential to promote the Internationalization of the Research between Brazil and Europe.

Author(s):

Carlos Ramos    
Instituto Politécnico do Porto
Portugal

Julio Cezar Bragaglia    
Instituto Federal de Santa Catarina
Brazil

Golberi Salvador Ferreira    
Instituto Federal de Santa Catarina
Brazil

Zita Vale    
Instituto Politécnico do Porto
Portugal