The things we need to know about Brazil- and how to learn it

Norway is the seventh largest foreign investor in Brazil. To quote the Norwegian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Morten Høglund, we do leave a “footprint on Brazilian economy”. That is impressive for a small country as Norway. Now, if we quote another amazing figure, we may also add that “with great powers comes great responsibility”. I think it is time we ask again what kind of knowledge we need about Brazil and how we should organize our research cooperation with Brazil. I have some suggestions.

Without doubt, the Norwegian “footprints” are related primarily to the activities in the off-shore and maritime sector. Brazil and Norway have strong interests in subsea technology, and research in these areas is vital to both countries. As a consequence we also see the tendency that a great majority of the agreements about research and education between the countries are based on the activities related to the petroleum sector. Some way or another. If you don’t agree, try to put it the other way around: if we did not have the common interest in petroleum and off-shore activities, how many bilateral agreements regarding research and education would there be between Norway and Brazil? Some, I am sure, but not many. Maybe not even the rain forest program.

What is the consequence of this? Research resources and consequently the development of new knowledge is channeled through the gas and petroleum sector. Other important areas like environment, education and health and social change, are every now and then mentioned as important areas of attention, but are in principle far from independent areas of priority in the same way. They tend to be included under the petroleum-umbrella.

But do we really need to know things about Brazil outside the common interests in petroleum and off-shore activities? Of course we do. We are talking about one of the biggest economies of the world with 200 million citizens. Or consumers if you wish. They influence their surroundings and Brazil is together with Mexico the most influential country in the Latin America. This alone should be a strong warning against focusing our research resources in only one sector of society. In addition to this we must be aware of what kind of footprints we wish to leave in Brazil. This is a political and ethical question. We must acknowledge that our participation in the petroleum enterprise has social and environmental consequences. And to many Brazilians, environment, education, health and social change is more important than oil.

My suggestion is that Norway develops strategies regarding research in Brazil that are organized in knowledge clusters, centered on defined areas of knowledge. To prove my point, I dare to suggest at least four areas of attention: (1) the obvious, the off-shore, subsea and petroleum sector, (2) research geared towards environment, then (3) education, health and social change and finally (4) politics and governance. The boarders between the sectors of research could of course be blurry, and sometimes they will contradict each other, but these are some important areas I believe we should pay attention to in our strategies. And to satisfy the courtesy conduct of research politics, we may build these clusters of knowledge in different geographical areas in Norway.

Now you might say that we do have research projects in all these sectors. Well, I am not talking about projects. I am talking about strategies. And our strategies regarding research and knowledge production about one of the 20 most influential countries in the world seem to be dominated by the offshore and maritime sector. That might not be a smart strategy. We need to do other things as well.