An influenza A vaccine is one of the results of studies developed as part of Embrapa’s scientific cooperation program Embrapa’s Virtual Laboratory Abroad Program (Embrapa Labex), an international scientific cooperation model which allows the inclusion of Embrapa’s researchers on international scientific qualified staffs in different countries, celebrates, in May 2018, 20 years. An influenza A vaccine is among the results of research developed as part of the program. These as well as other Labex achievements will be acknowledged in a panel to celebrate the 20 years of partnership between Embrapa and ARS (Agriculture Research Service), which will happen on May 16th, in Betsville, United States. Mauricio Antonio Lopes, president of Embrapa, will participate in the Panel. The event will last all the day long, and besides the 20 years Labex program celebrations, speeches and discussions about challenges and opportunities in the future of agriculture and livestock public agencies are also included in the agenda. Experts in agriculture invited by the Labex-USA coordinator and researcher, Geraldo Martha Junior, will take part on this second half of the Panel. Just like Embrapa, ARS is the USA agriculture research agency controlled by the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture), an institution similar to the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food Supply. ARS was the first institution with which Embrapa has gone into partnership such as the Labex Program, when, in 1998, both institutions signed a cooperation agreement that, since then, has been renewed. Results, achievements and advances In April 2009, a new virus which had been causing outbreaks of pneumonia among populations of the American continent was identified: the swine-origin influenza A(H1N1) virus. At the end of that same year, the influenza vaccine was already available. One of the members in the experts staff of the Agriculture Research Service (ARS) in charge of the development of the vaccine was the Embrapa researcher Janice Reis Ciacci Zanella. At the time, the current chief of Embrapa Swine and Poultry was a researcher at the Labex USA, program to which she had been admitted the previous year. The presence of a Brazilian researcher on a qualified staff, in charge of developing the vaccine to a lethal virus causing a pandemic that placed several countries on alert is one of the great accomplishments of Embrapa’s scientific exchange program, which, in 2018, reaches 20 years. However it is not the only one. The participation of Embrapa’s researchers in scientific networks engendered by experts in their areas and working on different countries is a fundamental measure to ensure that Brazilian agriculture science keeps itself at the frontier of human knowledge, asserts Alexandre Amaral, manager of Strategic International Relations at Embrapa. This is a permanent accomplishment of the Labex Program whose results are difficult to amount. However they can be seen, for instance, in the advances attained at some strategic research areas to Embrapa, in the instigation of new research areas, or in the encouragement to create new portfolios in the scope of Embrapa as well as the staff training on innovative techniques, sometimes previously unreleased, provided by scientists in partner institutions, Amaral said. Beyond the scope of the Brazilian corporation, some of the advantages of the program reach the scientific community and the Brazilian society. A recent example can be seen by the availability of a new public site in Portuguese of the Sistema de Informações Alelo Animal (Alelo Animal Information System/ Animal Grin). First international system focused on the genetic, productive, genealogy of animal genetic resources information storage, the Alelo Animal (Animal Grin) was delivered from partnerships established by the researcher Arthur Mariante (Embrapa Genetic Resources) when he was taking part of the Labex Program in the USA. The system was improved all through those years, and this action has started by the data sharing between Brazil and USA and through a joint established by Mariante, who, in the last stages, relied on the collaboration of Samuel Rezende de Paiva (Embrapa Genetic Resources), also a researcher at Labex-USA from 2013 to 2017. Through the Alelo Animal System (Animal Grin), a huge data base comprising sample collections from Brazil, United States and Canada is available to any person, anywhere in the world. Public reports generated in real time enable to verify and to compare information on the sample collections of the three countries. Researchers, surveyors and other people interested, who are fluent English speakers or not, can access this free online tool. More information on the Sistema Alelo (Alelo System/Animal Grin): Em Português, nova página pública do Alelo Animal tem navegação fácil e conteúdo para diferentes públicos Pedro Machado, the current Labex-Europe coordinator, features the performance of the program, so that to include Brazil in international scientific forums and networks, and to avoid scientific isolation, raising both Embrapa’s visibility and knowledge, on an international reach, on the attainment and success accomplished by the Brazilian agriculture research. “Today, Embrapa is invited to take part in meetings and forums which subsidize global decision making and this is due to its inclusion on international scientific cooperation networks”, Machado said. “Labex has been, all through those years, the main instrument of the corporation so that to prospect and to enhance these cooperations”, he added. Pedro Machado was in Brazil in the first weeks of May in order to take part of meetings between Embrapa’s head office and the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), from France, so that to renew the memorandum of understanding and cooperation signed by the two institutions. “INRA is already a partner of Embrapa. However our presence side by side with them, in France, via Labex, allowed a detailed alignment for the items agreed in the renewal of this agreement”, Machado explains. An alignment which began months ago when INRA invited Embrapa to take part in the meeting to detail their research program. “In this meeting, Embrapa was the only institution working in the tropical areas of the planet. The other research agencies invited were from the United States, Australia and Canada”, the researcher added. As to the American partner, Geraldo Martha, coordinator of the Labex-USA, highlights great consistency and interest to deepen the partnerships between ARS and Embrapa in the digital transformation area. According to the coordinator, there is a chance to forge advances in this field, by means of collaborative actions that include prospects in infrastructure and also enterprises which will enable to progress on joint works about precision agriculture and advanced modeling. A successful international scientific cooperation model Labex Program model of operation is based on establishing partnerships between the Brazilian corporation and research institutions in other countries. The counterpart abroad admits researchers, and welcomes them in their work teams and laboratories. Thus, the cooperation is integrated without the need to build and maintain facilities outside Brazil. The successful action has been used as a model to agriculture research institutions in other countries, such as Argentina, Colombia, Korea and China, when bringing about international cooperation programs. Embrapa-Labex began in 1998 by means of a cooperation agreement with the Agriculture Research Service (ARS), in the United States (USA). Embrapa’s researchers chosen through internal notice spend from two to three years working in partner laboratories abroad where, supported by local teams, develop research of interest to both institutions. The program works both as a tool to generate new cooperation agreements as well as to strengthen and to diversify partnerships already established. This task is developed both by the Labex-coordinator and by the program researchers. The first one is a professional who, all through the program, requires management skills and is in charge to prospect many areas of interest and international networking. Thus, supported by Embrapa’s professionals, he makes contact and relations with groups and networks of experts not precisely on that field which he works. The Labex-researcher is dedicated specifically to his area of expertise and uses the project accredited when he was approved as a guide to the work. He is also responsible for establishing new partnerships and to strengthen those already on course, and works still aiming at engendering cooperation networks, always observing his subject area. Both professionals develop a work engaged in prospecting, creating and integrating collaborative networks, that, all through those 20 years, have been chiefly fostering Embrapa’s scientific cooperation on an international reach. This model has turned the Labex Program a device so that to receive Embrapa’s researchers on foreign scientific qualified staffs. Embrapa Labex Important dates 1998 – Labex-USA is launched (in partnership with the Agricultural Research Service – ARS, Washington, USA) 2002 – Labex-Europe is launched (in partnership with Agropolis International, Montpellier, France) 2006 – Labex-researcher starts the Netherland program (Wageningen University) 2008 – Consórcio Internacional em Biologia Avançada – CIBA (International Consortium in Advanced Biology) is created – French-Brazilian scientific cooperation 2009 – Labex-Korea is launched (in partnership with Rural Development Administration – RDA) 2010 – Labex-researcher starts the United Kingdom program (Rothamsted Research) 2012 - Labex-researcher starts the program in Germany (Jülich Institute, Germany) 2012 – Labex-China is launched (in partnership with Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences – CAAS) 2012 – inauguração do Labex-China (parceria a CAAS - Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences) More information on Embrapa’s international scientific cooperation program can be obtained through the new Labex site Translation: Marcela Esteves