Brazil's federal science funding agency, gateway to the Brazilian research community for EU-LAC cooperation projects.
CNPq (Brazil's National Council for Scientific and Technological Development) is the federal agency that funds and coordinates scientific research and technological development across Brazil — the Brazilian equivalent of national science foundations like NSF or DFG. In H2020, CNPq participated exclusively in Coordination and Support Actions, meaning their role was not to conduct technical research but to represent Brazil's science governance layer: aligning national research agendas with European priorities, facilitating policy dialogue, and enabling Brazilian institutions to engage with EU-funded science. Their value in a European consortium is institutional access — CNPq can mobilize the Brazilian research community, broker inter-governmental science agreements, and provide the formal national mandate required for trans-Atlantic cooperation projects.
Both projects (AANChOR and EU-LAC ResInfra) are coordination actions explicitly built around aligning EU and Latin American research agendas through political dialogue and formal agreements like the Belém Statement.
AANChOR focused on building long-term Atlantic cooperation for ocean research and innovation, with CNPq contributing as the Brazilian national authority for science funding in this domain.
EU-LAC ResInfra targeted convergence between European and Latin American research infrastructures, an area where CNPq serves as the Brazilian national access point and policy broker.
In the earlier project (AANChOR, 2018), CNPq's engagement centered on a specific domain — marine and ocean research — with keywords pointing to the Belém Statement, a concrete inter-governmental science agreement, and to implementation of long-term Atlantic cooperation activities. By 2019, with EU-LAC ResInfra, the focus broadened beyond any single scientific domain toward general research infrastructure alignment, EU-CELAC political dialogue, and the structural conditions for EU–Latin America partnership. The shift is from domain-specific ocean science cooperation toward horizontal, cross-domain science governance across the EU-LAC region.
CNPq is moving toward a broader diplomatic and governance role in EU-LAC science relations, suggesting future value in any consortium that needs a formal Brazilian institutional anchor for trans-Atlantic or Latin American engagement.
CNPq has never led an H2020 project — in both cases they joined large, multi-country consortia as a participating institution. With 33 distinct consortium partners across 19 countries from just 2 projects, they operate in wide, politically diverse networks rather than tight technical clusters. This reflects their function as a national agency: they join where Brazilian institutional representation is needed, not where technical work is being executed.
CNPq has worked with 33 unique partners across 19 countries despite only 2 projects — a high partner density that reflects the large, politically motivated consortia typical of coordination actions. Their network spans both EU member states and Latin American countries, with a clear Atlantic and EU-LAC geographic axis.
CNPq is the single most authoritative gateway to Brazilian science for any EU consortium seeking Latin American partners — it is not one university or institute among many, but the federal body that funds and represents Brazil's entire research ecosystem. For coordinators building EU-LAC cooperation projects, having CNPq as a partner provides both institutional legitimacy and practical access to Brazil's network of universities, research centres, and government science programs. No other Brazilian institution carries the same combination of national mandate, international recognition, and cross-sector reach.
