Brussels, 07/03/2013 (Agence Europe) - Education Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou met Brazilian Minister for Education Aloizio Mercadante in Brussels on 5 March to discuss the various ways in which they could deepen relations between the European Union and Brazil in the education sector. The commissioner used the occasion to congratulate Brazil on its “Ciência sem fronteiras” (Science without Borders) project, which has enabled more than 100,000 students and Brazilian researchers to specialise in foreign universities between 2012-2015. Almost 50% of the students and researchers chose the European Union to study their specialist subjects. Vassiliou welcomed the increased level of co-operation between the EU and Brazil in higher education over recent years, thanks to programmes such as Erasmus Mundi, Marie Curie and ALFA (EU and Latin America cooperation programme between higher education institutes), and also in the strategic dialogue set up in 2009 between the EU and Brazil in the education sector. The commissioner also congratulated Brazil and Latin America as a whole for their student mobility programme within Mercosur.
Vassiliou and Mercadante discussed opportunities for creating joint diplomas within the new Erasmus for All programme. Mercadante also called for more grants to help Brazilian students, particularly those interested in cultural affairs and the arts, within the context of the Erasmus Mundus programme and other education programmes. The Brazilian minister said that “Brazil is a big country and there are few grants. We are calling for more and the signing of an agreement”. Mercadante expressed Brazil's interest in participating in the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) and underlined his country's support for the new European university league table devised by the European Commission and promised to provide an account of it to his Latin American partners. (IL/transl.fl)