A cooperation agreement with WWU was signed in 2014 with the Brazilian Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa de São Paulo (FAPESP, The São Paulo Research Foundation), the Brazilian state's financially strongest funding agency, following successful negotiations between the Brazilian Centre and WWU. Since then, FAPESP and WWU have regularly published joint calls for proposals within the framework of the FAPESP programme "SPRINT" (SPRINT - São Paulo Researchers in International Collaboration).
The programme offers researchers from WWU the opportunity to develop research projects in cooperation with researchers from universities and institutions in São Paulo within the framework of reciprocal visits and workshops and then apply to FAPESP and a corresponding funding organisations in Germany such as the DFG for funding. Through this seed funding, only mobility costs are covered in order to promote the generation of new research projects between Münster and São Paulo.
FAPESP awards fellowships for different stages of scientific careers, funds research projects in all fields of knowledge and also supports larger priority programmes in priority topics such as biodiversity, bioenergy, global climate change and neuroscience. Worldwide, FAPESP maintains partnerships with funding organisations, e.g. also DFG and DAAD, universities, research institutes as well as with companies.
FAPESP's annual budget is 1% of the sales tax revenue in the state of São Paulo, which is not only relatively stable but also considerable - approx. 357 million USD (Jan.- Oct. 2022). The state of São Paulo has 45 million inhabitants, and 34% of Brazil's gross domestic product is generated here. In this state, 30% of PhD researchers from Brazil and 45% of articles published in international scientific journals are written by researchers from São Paulo.
