By By Dr Rafael Vieira Texeira
Project link: “Shaping global urban environments for today and tomorrow: Internationalisation of researcher development and doctoral provision in strategic research areas through a Brazil/UK collaboration” British Council Funding (Nov 2019 – Oct 2020)
Coventry University (CU), via GLEA (Global Learning: Education and Attainment), the Doctoral College and ICTE (Doctoral College and Centre for Research Capability & Development) are partnering with the Universidade Federal Do Espírito Santo (UFES), Brazil, on a British Council funded capacity-building project, addressing UFES’s institutional and regional needs to enhance its internationalisation capabilities within priority social sciences research areas as per its Internationalisation Plan. For the UFES team, this Project is also part of the ‘Coordination of Superior Level Staff Improvement’ aka ‘CAPES Print’ which is funded by the Brazilian government.
On January 15th a meeting took place to strengthen and expand our project partnership work. This included:
- Discussion and planning for an education PhD cotutelle across our two universities to enable doctoral research to be sustained across our research themes.
- Development of an advert to recruit a PhD Student Assistant to support our project work
- Discussion around possibilities for new research partnerships
- Developing a plan and agenda items to prioritise for upcoming meetings
UFES will meet with colleagues in Coventry again in March (24th-26th). Coventry colleagues will also visit UFES later in September 2020.
From de left do the right: Lynn Clouder, Luca Morini, Richard Tomlins, Katherine Wimpenny, Lúcia Garcia, Marta Vizcaya, Rafael Teixeira, Patrícia Alcântara, Kyria Finardi, Arinola Adefila
Figure 1: The activities for the project. Presentation for Patricia Alcântara and Lúcia Garcia in the Seminar of British Council, London 27th-28th 2020.
Our partner visits are particularly important for developing our research relationships, understanding of synergy across our research themes, (including how UFES are continuing to develop research links with CU wider university research centres) and in discussing our ideas for future research project proposals and research publications.
During the same week, 16th January, there was a sandpit event, hosted by GLEA, to consider a new research project in partnership with UFES and three other institutions; The Hague University of Applied Science, The Netherlands; the University Colleges Leuven-Limburg (UCLL), Belgium; and The Open University, UK.
Colleagues from the five HEIs: UFES, The Hague University of Applied Science, UCLL, The Open University and Coventry University
The sandpit event raised lots of interesting ideas and discussion with a central aim to focus on examination of the internationalization of the curriculum necessary for impactful 22nd Century learning across universities. An outcome of the meeting was the development of a concept note which will form the basis of discussion for a next follow-on meeting planned for 13th February.
Round the table, from the left to the right: Karine Hindrix, Patrícia Alcântara, Lúcia Garcia, Jos Beelen, Wâtte Zijlstra, Virginia King, Luca Morini, Katherine Wimpenny, Rafael Teixeira, Ellen Sjoer and Marta Vizcaya.
As mentioned, the networking and relationship building for our project partnerships is of key importance and we made sure as well as working hard, we enjoyed some well-earned social time together, and a partner dinner was enjoyed by all!
The following Monday (January, 20th), UFES and GLEA colleagues met with a fellow researcher now based at Keele University, Professor Gary Spolander, to continue work on shared international publications together.
It is a pleasure to conduct our work together on this project, and already we can see the fruits of our partnership work taking shape, not least through the rich networks forming but also in the writing of publications and new proposals for future collaboration.
Blog written by:
Dr. Rafael Vieira Teixeira, Visiting Researcher at GLEA / Coventry University by CAPES-Print (Brazil)
Adjunct Professor in the Department of Social Work and Collaborator in the Graduate Program in Social Policy at UFES-Brazil
Email: ad4354@coventry.ac.uk / rafael.v.teixeira@ufes.br
