In 1996, Brazil and Germany signed the Framework Agreement for Scientific and Technologic Cooperation that establishes a legal basis for the cooperation between those countries in the Science, Technology and Innovation field.

In this context, in August 20th, 2015, during Chancellor Angela Merkel’s visit to Brasilia, for the First German-Brazilian High Level Consultation Meeting, the Minister of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade, Armando Monteiro Neto, signed, along with the German Vice-Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy, Matthias Machnig a Joint Declaration of Intent (in German) on bilateral co-operation in research, development and innovation. This joint declaration reaffirms the interest of both countries to develop a bilateral cooperation program in industrial R&D.

Supported by the Declaration, concomitantly to its signing, Minister Armando Monteiro Neto and Vice Minister Matthias Machnig launched the 1st Call for Proposals for joint projects in research and development between Brazilian and German companies.

On November 13, 2017, during the Brazil-Germany Business Meeting in Porto Alegre, the 2nd Call for Proposals was launched, inviting enterprises to elaborate a R&D cooperation proposal that results in the development of new products, processes or services directed to the commercialization in the national and/or global market. The Project should demonstrate proper balance of the industrial partners’ participation, with complementarity between companies and contributions from both sides for the research. The Call closes on May 31st 2018.

The initiative forsees the joint funding of projects using resources from the ZIM Program (Central Innovation Program for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises), on the German side, and, on the Brazilian side, from BNDES, EMBRAPII, or the participant State Foundations for Research Support, listed on the CONFAP Call no. 2/2017.

Aiming to support Brazilian companies in the process of finding partners to develop joint projects, MDIC launched the International Cooperation on Innovation Portal, where enterprises can register and look for partners sorted by country and area of expertise, besides finding the relevant documents to submit a cooperation proposal.

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