Amazon+10 Initiative will support research with R$59.2 million – 01/13/2024 – Science

The Amazon+10 Initiative and the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) launched the Scientific Expeditions Call in November, which will make R$59.2 million available to finance research aimed at expanding scientific knowledge of socio-biodiversity in little-known areas of the world. largest tropical forest in the world. The deadline for submitting proposals is April 29, 2024, as detailed in the notice.

The Amazon+10 Initiative is led by the National Council of State Research Support Foundations (Confap) and the National Council of Secretaries for Science, Technology and Innovation Affairs (Consecti) and also has a partnership with CNPq.

“The Amazon+10 Initiative Program aims to provide resources for scientific projects in the region, coordinating research groups that combine local researchers with those from other states. CNPq is proud to participate in this initiative, which will certainly bring great scientific and technological benefits to the region “, comments Ricardo Galvão, president of CNPq, highlighting that the preservation of the Amazon forest and the development of its economy in a sustainable, non-predatory way, depend heavily on local scientific knowledge.

“Fapesp actively participated in the articulation of the Amazon+10 Initiative. In the first call, researchers from São Paulo joined those from other FAPs to develop a large part of the projects that are currently underway in the region. The second call will contribute to expanding even more cooperative research in the search for a solution for a region that is a heritage of Brazil and the entire planet”, says Marco Antonio Zago, president of Fapesp.

For Odir Dellagostin, president of Confap, the Amazon is not just of interest to the states in the region. “It concerns the entire country and the world. Researchers from other parts of Brazil are also interested in contributing to the region’s challenges and, therefore, the possibility of allocating resources from other state foundations to support research is very welcome. This strengthens the Amazon+10 Initiative and we are very happy that, at the moment, we have 25 of the 27 FAPs [Fundações de Amparo à Pesquisa] involved in the program.”

In this notice, 19 FAPs joined the call, nine from states in the Legal Amazon (Amazonas, Acre, Rondônia, Roraima, Pará, Maranhão, Amapá, Tocantins and Mato Grosso), in addition to Rio Grande do Sul, Mato Grosso do Sul, Rio de Janeiro, Goiás, Pernambuco, Alagoas, Paraíba, Paraná, São Paulo and the Federal District. Other national and international agencies can still join the Call for Scientific Expeditions until December 31st.

“We took an important step with this initiative. Often, the Amazon received researchers from other states, from other countries and researchers from the region themselves did not participate in the projects – or only acted as supporting actors. And there was progress in this direction with the first notice launched by the Amazon+10 Initiative, in 2022, and again this year. This means partnership work, collaborative research, which takes into account what Amazonians think and what they have”, explained Márcia Perales, CEO of the Foundation of Research Support for the State of Amazonas (Fapeam).

For her, the results that can be achieved with the new call are very great. “Expeditions can bring back super important materials in relation to regional socio-biodiversity. And this means that our knowledge is expanded. Many of them will serve as a basis for new research or to contribute to solving problems that we identify in our daily lives. It’s a The launch of this notice by Confap, Consecti and CNPq is immense wealth and boldness.”

The notice

Projects sent for evaluation must have researchers responsible for at least 2 of the 19 states whose FAPs joined the call, one of which must be linked to institutions based in the states of the Legal Amazon. The notice also provides for the inclusion in the research team of at least one member linked to indigenous peoples, quilombolas and traditional communities (PIQCT), holder of traditional knowledge related to the territory that will be studied.

Proposals must be aimed at multidisciplinary scientific expeditions in the Amazon region for a period of up to 36 months. The minimum value of each project covered will be R$400,000 – there is no maximum limit. A script was made available that explains the step-by-step process for submitting the proposal on the Carlos Chagas Platform, from CNPq.

Of the R$59,250,000 foreseen in this call, R$30 million will be allocated by CNPq exclusively to researchers with a formal link with an institution located in one of the states of the Legal Amazon.

“This time we are seeking greater participation in the Amazon+10 Initiative. We have built this call together with the FAPs, Confap and Consecti. And, with it, we want to express the CNPq’s sensitivity to this very important agenda, which today includes the Amazon issue “, says Dalila Andrade Oliveira, from the CNPq Institutional, International Cooperation and Innovation Directorate.

Although the Amazon is one of the largest and most intact forests in the world, it is also one of the least known in biological terms. Its immense size, diversity and limited access make the task of documenting its biodiversity extremely challenging.

The notice precisely attempts to fill two gaps, one geographic and the other taxonomic, as explained by Carlos Américo Pacheco, director-president of the Technical-Administrative Council of Fapesp. “We know that the areas that have strong knowledge about the biodiversity of the Amazon are the easiest to access, generally along river routes. But 40% of the Amazon territory has a great lack of knowledge about what biodiversity exists there.” This is what the article published in July 2023, in Current Biology, by the Synergize project shows. According to the article, a large part of the Amazon areas are being neglected by research in ecology.

“The other gap concerns the taxonomy of the region”, adds Pacheco. “Some types of species have very little coverage when it comes to knowledge of biodiversity — the most serious cases are fungi and bacteria. In relation to bacteria, for example, the implications are great not only with regard to their economic use , but especially when we talk about public health.” The intention is that the call will help overcome these gaps.

The notice will also support expeditions aimed at expanding knowledge of the sociocultural diversity of the traditional peoples of the Amazon. Research will be funded, for example, on the material and immaterial heritage of ancestral, indigenous and traditional peoples, documentation of indigenous languages ​​and associated knowledge systems, in addition to the relationship between territorial dynamics of traditional peoples and the sustainable use of natural forest resources.

For Marcel do Nascimento Botelho, director-president of the Amazon Foundation for Studies and Research (Fapespa), notices like this are fundamental. “These are basic knowledge that need to be acquired by the scientific community to be transformed into other products, such as the use of biodiversity, the preservation of culture, the valorization of traditional knowledge. Without scientific expeditions, we will not have the basis to do this with the competence and the necessary quality.”

One of the guidelines of the notice is that the material collected on scientific expeditions be cataloged and registered in Amazonian institutions, as a way of preserving this heritage. Therefore, local universities and research institutes will play an important role in this issue.

The final result of the proposed proposals will be announced in August 2024, on the website of CNPq, Confap and all participating FAPs, as well as in the Official Gazette of the Union.

About the Amazon+10 Initiative

The Amazon+10 Initiative supports collaborative research projects aimed at conserving biodiversity and adapting to climate change, protecting traditional populations and communities, urban challenges and bioeconomy as an economic development policy in the region. In the first call for proposals, launched in June 2022, 39 research projects in the region were selected.

“It is an unprecedented action of bringing together 25 State Research Support Foundations for a single program. This is something that demonstrates the importance of what is being tried to be resolved, of the solutions they are trying to create”, highlights Silvio Bulhões, president of Consecti.

“This project was born as the result of a broad discussion, an initiative from many hands and responds a little about the importance of the region’s protagonism, of meeting the region’s needs and seeing local particularities”, says Marcel do Nascimento Botelho, director- president of Fapespa.

The studies supported under this initiative must advance scientific knowledge about the Amazon and, together with actors relevant to the formulation of public policies, attract public and private investments in order to promote the well-being of the region’s populations consistently and long term.

The Initiative aims to, over the next few years, invest more than R$500 million in research in the Amazon.