We are delighted to announce to our Community that on the 19th of January 2016, euroCRIS and the Instituto Brasileiro de Informação em Ciência e Tecnologia (IBICT) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), the first one in the history of our Organisation with a non-European Partner. This partnership strengthens our opinion that the Research Ecosystem has no geographic or national borders and that to reach the perfect technical interoperability among different systems, we need cross-country cooperation on other levels to identify common solutions for common problems.
The MoU signed with IBICT aims at establishing and promoting a strong collaboration to support the implementation of the optimal research information infrastructure in Brazil, based on the European experience and best practices on Current Research Information Systems (CRISs). CRISs are the key systems for the management and exchange of information on research projects, researchers, research organisations, and research output and euroCRIS, thanks to its long experience and commitment in this area, to its wide community of experts has been identified as the right Organisation to provide IBICT with the needed support for their important initiative.
More importantly, the CERIF-format is seen as a crucial component in the further development and improvement of research information in Brazil, making the standard developed and maintained by euroCRIS the tool to allow international interoperability
IBICT, the Brazilian Institute of Information in Science and Technology, is a Research Unit linked to the Brazilian Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation (MCTI) and is responsible for information systems related to research and innovation in Brazil. Its main mission is to promote the competence, the development of resources and the infrastructure of information on science, technology and innovation (ST&I). In this respect IBICT maintains the Brazilian Portal of Scientific Publications in Open Access. This portal is the biggest Open Access repository in South America.
euroCRIS is honoured to have signed this collaboration with such an important Brazilian Institution and we truly consider it as the beginning of a new era in the world of Research Information and CERIF. euroCRIS expects that Brazil (and possibly other Latin American countries) may profit from the experiences gained in Europe. On the other hand, the IBICT development may give a positive boost on CRIS-developments in Europe and elsewhere.
We are especially grateful to our Portuguese member, Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) and more specifically João Moreira for establishing the contacts between euroCRIS and IBICT and as such preparing the ground for this MoU.