Professor Wendel Batista da Silveira, coordinator of the Graduate Program in Agricultural Microbiology, was in Germany from April 9 to 19 on a mission with nine other professors and representatives from UFV. As part of the Capes-Print Internationalization Program, the group visited seven German universities in order to establish new partnerships and strengthen ties that could promote teaching and research opportunities in Europe. “These are universities we haven’t worked with directly before, so there’s a lot of potential. We’re opening up good prospects for partnerships, including exchange projects and joint work within the European community.”

The professor particularly highlights the talks at the universities of Münster, Düsseldorf, Hohenheim and Munich, which brought good prospects for the PPG. “In Münster, I visited the Institute for Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology (IMMB), where I spoke with Professor Jochen Schmid. The university already has an office in Brazil, and it was clear that they were very interested in formalizing an institutional partnership with UFV, which would give us good prospects for exchanges, especially for sandwich doctorates.”

In the case of the Technical University of Munich, not only was the conversation promising, but exchanges and joint projects have already begun. Researcher Philipp Noll agreed to host undergraduate student João Leitão, who works on various research projects in the laboratory coordinated by Professor Wendel. “Last Friday, the student submitted his proposal for a scholarship to develop his project there (“Use of bioinformatics tools applied to metabolic models for prediction of bioproducts using Saccharomyces cerevisiae in precision fermentation processes”). The grant is not yet guaranteed, but it is a possibility that would benefit the entire PPG, since João is linked to a research group in the Graduate Program.”

At the University of Hohenheim, Wendel spoke to Professor Rudolf Hausmann from the Department of Bioprocess Engineering, Institute of Food Science and Biotechnology and Professor George Cadisch, from the Institute of Agricultural Sciences in the Tropics. “It’s a university with a lot of expertise in agricultural sciences. So there are many professors with work and lines of research that are similar or complementary to ours, which opens up many possibilities.” At Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, the conversation was with Professor Michael Feldbrügge, who also expressed great interest in a partnership with UFV.

The Brazilian mission also visited the universities of Würzburg, Göttingen and the Weihenstephan-Triesdorf University of Applied Sciences (HSWT).