Tour through Southern Brazil - Unisinos looking for Dutch Design and UCS interested in cooperation with Dutch HE
Nov 26, 2009
During the Holland Today Tour, organized by the Dutch Consulate-General in São Paulo, Nuffic Neso Brazil presented Dutch higher education to the South Region of Brazil. Various new contacts were made and two universities of the South showed a specific interest for cooperation with Dutch higher education.
Time flies and it has already been a month ago that Nuffic Neso Brazil participated in the ´Holland Today´ tour through the South of Brazil organized by the Consulate-General in São Paulo and the Netherlands Embassy in Brasília. The Tour, named Holanda Hoje - Holland Today, presented the various fields of modern day the Netherlands to the South, aiming at enlarging the interest of this wealthy and well developed region for the Netherlands. Besides presentations from the Embassy and Consulate on Agriculture, Culture & Design and Economics, presentations were given by the NBSO office in Porto Alegre and a delegate of the Port of Rotterdam. I gave a presentation on Dutch higher education, with a special focus on the high quality and innovative side of higher education & research in the Netherlands. The tour passed through Caxias do Sul, Porto Alegre, both in the State of Rio Grande do Sul and Florianópolis in the state of Santa Catarina. The tour was a success, mainly because the Dutch representations joined forces and presented Holland in all its facets, and many new contacts were made. For now I would like to draw your attention to two of these contacts.
In Caxias do Sul I visited the University of Caxias do Sul, in Brazil known by its abbreviation UCS - Universidade de Caxias do Sul. UCS is a private university, a large one with approx. 36.000 students. UCS has a well equipped and modern campus, one of best organized campuses I have seen so far in Brazil. The University scores above average in the national evaluation (see website of Neso Brazil for an explanation on the national evaluation) and is strong in internationalization, especially in exchange programs. UCS has active partnerships with universities literally all over the world, yet not with Dutch universities. UCS is interested in setting up cooperation with Dutch universities. This is the university´s website: http://www.ucs.br/site. Unfortunately the website is only available in Portuguese. If you / your institution would like to have more information on UCS you can contact UCS directly by sending an e-mail to internacionais@ucs.br or by sending an e-mail to Nuffic Neso Brazil.
At the presentation in Florianópolis, held at the Association of Santa Catarina industries - FIESC, representatives of several higher education institutions were present. For example the Federal University of Santa Catarina - UFSC-Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina and Unisinos - Universidade do Vale do Rio Sinos. The latter is a private university, the third best of Brazil according to the national evaluation of the ministry of Education in 2008. The representative of Unisinos present that day showed a lot of interest to get more information on Dutch Design. His name is Marcos Farias da Silveira, Coordinator of Business developments. He is looking for contacts within Dutch universities that work with design and offer programs in that area. If you would like to get in contact with Unisinos to show what your institution has to offer in the area of design you can contact Marcos by sending an e-mail to marcosf@unisinos.br. For more information about the university itself visit the website of Unisinos in English: http://www.unisinos.br/english/
Remon Daniel