During the Enterprise Ireland led education mission last week, Brazil announced that it is more than doubling the number of undergraduate scholarships to Ireland for 2015 and Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT), with the largest number of Brazilian students of any Higher Education Institution in Ireland, is ideally placed to benefit from Brazil’s investment in Ireland.
During the Enterprise Ireland led education mission last week, Brazil announced that it is more than doubling the number of undergraduate scholarships to Ireland for 2015 and Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT), with the largest number of Brazilian students of any Higher Education Institution in Ireland, is ideally placed to benefit from Brazil’s investment in Ireland.
“This is indeed a most welcome development” commented Don O’Neill, “as Ireland is the only country to have been allocated a significantly increased number of scholarship places for the coming year. It is gratifying to see international recognition for the quality of academic work being carried out at Higher Education institutions nationally and of great importance to WIT - the city and the region - as we continue to develop a world class network for academic and industrial collaboration at WIT.”
Dr Ken Thomas, Head of School of Engineering and Don O’Neill from the Office for International Relations represented WIT on the education mission and successfully developed a range of prestigious new partnership agreements for staff and student exchange and enhanced research collaboration with four of Brazil’s top-ranked universities – Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Universidade Federal de Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG) and Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo (UFES). These agreements will form a solid foundation for advancing cooperation with Brazil’s leading universities well into the future.
“Adding these leading universities to WIT’s already significant portfolio of partner universities in Brazil is of great importance to the Institute’s research community and opens doors for collaboration in a multiplicity of areas”, commented Dr Ken Thomas. “WIT is already engaged in a variety of collaborative research projects with Brazilian universities in many areas and it is hoped to further strengthen this collaboration through work with these new leading university partners”.
“In addition to collaborative research, closer collaboration with Brazilian based industries is also planned” according to Don O’Neill, referring to a meeting with Irish multinational Kerry Group whose Brazilian operations are based in Campinas in São Paulo state and managed by WIT alumnus, Dan O’Brien, President - Beverage Ingredients and Flavours, Latin America at Kerry.
Mr O’Neill added that “Synergies with companies like Kerry will provide for exciting opportunities for WIT students and researchers in one of the world’s fastest growing economies.”
WIT has already over 220 Brazilian students enrolled across Bachelor, Masters and Doctoral programmes. Many Brazilian students currently enrolled in WIT are recipients of scholarships from the Brazilian Ministry for Higher Education under the ‘Science without Borders’ programme. This year, the Institute is particularly pleased to have received funding from the Irish government to host two Brazilian scholars as part of the prestigious ‘Government of Ireland’ scholarship programme. These students are currently enrolled on Masters programmes at WIT.
During the mission, the newly appointed Irish Ambassador to Brazil, His Excellency Brian Glynn, hosted an event for Brazilian alumni of Irish institutions. Dr Thomas and Mr O’Neill met with several former WIT students who recalled their time at the Institute with great fondness and spoke of their appreciation for the dedication of staff in making their experience in Waterford such a positive one.
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