By Eduardo Geraque & Karina Toledo  |  Agência FAPESP – Carlos Henrique de Brito Cruz, FAPESP’s Scientific Director, has been elected Chair of the Governing Board of the Global Research Council (GRC). Brito Cruz will serve a one-year term, taking over from Vladislav Panchenko, President of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR).

Established in 2012, the GRC is an association of the heads of the world’s leading research funding agencies. Its main aim is to compile and share data and best practices for high-quality collaboration among its participants. The 2019 annual meeting ends Friday, May 3, in São Paulo.

“Brito offered to host the meeting here in São Paulo, he’s been a member of the Governing Board for some time, and now he’s been elected to chair it for the next year. It’s an honour he deserves. We’re excited about it as we expect him to bring new energy. We all know he has a lot of good ideas,” said France Córdova, Director of the US National Science Foundation (NSF).

“It’s a decision that recognizes FAPESP’s importance in the global arena. We have partnerships with the world’s leading research funding agencies,” Brito Cruz said. 

With degrees in electronic engineering and physics, Brito Cruz is a faculty member at the University of Campinas’s Gleb Wataghin Physics Institute (IFGW-UNICAMP). He was Rector of UNICAMP, from 2002 to 2005. 

He graduated in electronic engineering from the Aeronautical Technology Institute (ITA) and earned a master’s degree and PhD at IFGW-UNICAMP, where he has taught since 1982. Currently he is Full Professor in the Quantum Electronics Department. 

Brito Cruz was a visiting researcher at the University of Rome’s Quantum Optics Laboratory in Italy and at Pierre and Marie Curie University’s Femtosecond Research Laboratory in Paris, and resident researcher at AT&T's Bell Laboratories in Holmdel, New Jersey (USA). 

At UNICAMP he was Director of IFGW from 1991 to 1994 and from 1998 to 2002, Pro-Rector of Research from 1994 to 1998, and Rector from 2002 to 2005. He was President of FAPESP from 1996 to 2002. 

Brito Cruz is a member of the Brazilian Academy of Science and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has been decorated with the French Ordre des Palmes Academiques and the Brazilian Ordem do Mérito Científico. He was awarded an honorary OBE (Order of the British Empire) in 2015. 

According to Euclides de Mesquita Neto, a member of FAPESP’s Adjunct Panel for Special Programmes and Research Collaboration, “this is a position of leadership on the Governing Board, which in turn comprises a group of leaders. Three members are elected from each of the world’s five regions, based on their capacity for representation and organization,” he said. 

“His election is an important recognition of both Professor Brito himself and the work done by FAPESP,” added Mesquita Neto, who is also a member of the GRC’s Executive Support Group.

More information on the 8th Annual Meeting of the Global Research Council: www.fapesp.br/eventos/grc.

Photo credit: Piu Dip / Agência FAPESP