Engage Amazonia 2025
The Amazonian region is home to 30 million people of 350 ethnic groups and to the largest and most diverse tropical forest on the Planet, with fundamental contribution to mitigate global change. Amazonia faces huge challenges with the acceleration of climate change, deforestation, land conflicts and the historic poverty.
The launch of the University of Birmingham Brazil Institute (UBBI) has created a significant new UK research centre, dedicated to working with Brazilian researchers and institutions to tackle multidisciplinary scientific challenges that are of critical importance for Brazil, the UK and wider world.
The UBBI is launching the programme Engage Amazonia 2025 to enable exchange between researchers and students from the University of Birmingham (UoB) and Amazonia. This initiative in collaboration with the Birmingham Institute for Sustainability and Climate Action (BISCA) and the Birmingham Institute for Forestry Research (BIFoR) aims to attract researchers across all five UoB research challenge themes. UBBI aims to work with Amazonian researchers to contribute to creating solutions to the Amazonian challenges.
Timing
The Amazon is in the spotlight. In 2025 COP30 will be hosted in the Amazonian city of Belém, in the state of Pará. There are new funding streams dedicated to Amazon-related work, such as Amazon+10, a multi-national funding collaboration between Brazil’s National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) and National Council of State Funding Agencies (CONFAP), and global funding agencies (including UKRI and the British Council). The first call in April 2024 supported research expeditions with Brazilian partners to increase knowledge of biodiversity and socio-cultural diversity of the Amazon. The next call (expected in late 2024) will fund collaborative research on Amazon challenges.
A UBBI delegation to the State of Pará in April 2024 expanded the University’s engagement with relevant Amazonian agencies, including FAPESPA, EMBRAPA, FINEP, Museo Emilio Goeldi and UFPA. UBBI has subsequently expressed our commitment to become the first international partner of the nascent Integrated Center for Amazonian Sociobiodiversity (CISAM).
Our Vision
Engage Amazonia 2025 is a multidisciplinary programme designed to build long-term collaborations between Birmingham and Amazonian researchers. We invite Birmingham academics from all disciplines with an interest in the region to participate in the programme. The programme has six interlinked strands of engagement:
- Celebrate Amazonia, an on-campus celebration of our research, climate change engagement, and Brazilian music and culture (February 2025)
- Building Bridges to Solve Amazonian Challenges match-making workshop to connect UoB academics and researchers from across the Amazon (April 2025)
- Amazonia-UBBI Collaboration Fund to seed research collaborations between Birmingham and researchers based in the Amazon region in any discipline linked to Amazon challenges.
- Amazonia Global Challenges Immersion in Caxiuanã, Pará to build capacity among students and staff from the UK and Brazil, including indigenous students from the Brazilian Amazon region, to co-create adaptive practices and solutions to promote the well-being of Amazonian ecosystems and its peoples (July 2025).
- Voices of the Youth panel at COP 30 in Belém, facilitating knowledge sharing, networking, and youth advocacy (November 2025).
- Engage Amazonia 2025 Early Career Fellowships in Research and Innovation, funded by the British Council International Science Partnerships Fund, for 3 Brazilian researchers to spend a year at the UBBI and BISCA working with Birmingham academics on Amazonian challenge research projects in 2025-2006.
Through Engage Amazonia 2025, UBBI seeks to cultivate research and educational outputs with the potential to inform wider funding bids including through the Amazon+10 Challenges call and policy dialogue at COP30 in Belém.
Find out more about our partnership with Brazil in our Birmingham Brazil Annual Report
Celebrate Amazonia: UBBI Carnaval on Campus
Celebrate Amazonia: UBBI Carnaval on Campus
Dates: 25-28 February 2025, with 26 February the centrepiece
Location: University of Birmingham
UBBI will host a Brazilian Carnaval celebration to celebrate our place on our planet, the potential to stop or reverse climate change, our research and engagement on diverse global challenges, and the Brazilian community residing in the Midlands. Through our Carnaval celebration, we celebrate, adding an important cultural component to Engage Amazonia, offering local ways to engage for our staff, students, and the general public.
Building Bridges to Solve Amazonian Challenges
Building Bridges to Solve Amazonian Challenges
Dates: April 2024
Location: Belém, Pará, Brazil (depending on availability and interest levels)
Overview
A multidisciplinary match-making event hosted with our partners in Belém, Brazil, and in collaboration with the UBBI, designed to foster connections between researchers in the Amazon region addressing some of the most pressing global challenges faced in the Amazon.
Purpose
The workshop aims to strengthen research collaborations between the University of Birmingham and a diverse group of institutions in Pará, including UFPA, Instituto Carlos Chagas, Museo Emilio Goeldi, EMBRAPA, IFPA, UFRA, CESUPA, UFOPA, UNIFESPA, UEPA, and CISAM (the new Integrated Center for Amazonian Sociobiodiversity). By building interdisciplinary partnerships, we seek to advance research on key Amazonian challenges and related disciplines from a broad spectrum of science and humanities. This includes the themes of global change, energy transition, green economy, public health, bioeconomy, sustainable development, sustainable agriculture, gender equality, traditional knowledge, indigenous rights, biodiversity and forest restoration. This match making will allow researchers to apply for future funding calls including:
- Amazon 10+: Collaborative call between Brazil state funding agencies, UKRI, British Council and other international partners. Next call to be launched in November and to focus on solutions to Amazonian challenges.
- UBBI-Amazonia Joint Collaboration Fund: to be launched in Spring 2025 to strengthen collaborations between Amazonia and UoB.
- UBBI-CAPES/Chico Mendes Chair Programme in Environmental Sciences, Climate Change, Ecosystems, Sustainability, Societies and Environment: supports an annual visiting Chair and associated one-year postdocl and sandwich PhD fellowships at the UBBI.
- Engage Amazonia 2025 Early Career Fellowships in Research and Innovation: call opens 15 February and closes 15 May 2025 for three fully-funded one year fellowships for Brazilian ECRs to spend the 2025-2026 academic year at the UBBI and BISCA working on Amazonian challenges.
Application
Complete short expression of interest form.
Additional Information
If the workshop takes place in person, UBBI will cover the travel and accommodation costs of up to 8 Birmingham academic participants, who require travel financial support. The University of Birmingham will provide translation services among participants.
UBBI-Amazonia Joint Collaboration Fund
UBBI-Amazonia Joint Collaboration Fund
Dates: Spring 2025
Overview
The proposed call will fund joint collaborative research projects in any discipline, up to a maximum of £20,000, over a duration of 12 months. The fund covers research-related expenses directly pertaining to the project, as well as travel (air tickets), health insurance, and living allowances for researchers based in Birmingham and Amazonian institutions.
Purpose
The seed fund aims to foster research collaborations between academics from UoB and Amazonia to build capacity and advance research on key Amazonian challenges and related disciplines from a broad spectrum of science and humanities.
This includes the themes:
- Global change
- Energy transition
- Green economy
- Public health
- Bioeconomy
- Sustainable development
- Sustainable agriculture
- Gender equality
- Traditional knowledge
- Indigenous rights
- Biodiversity
- Forest restoration
Amazonia Global Challenges Immersion
Amazonia Global Challenges Immersion
Date: July 2025
Location: Caxiuanã Forest Scientific Station, Pará
Overview
Delivered in partnership with Emílio Goeldi Museum of Pará, UFPA and FAPESPA, the Amazonia immersion will build capacity among undergraduate students from UoB and Pará, including indigenous students from the Brazilian Amazon region, to co-create adaptive practices and solutions to promote the well-being of Amazonian ecosystems and its peoples.
By bringing together and training the next generation of scientists and scholars, the international school will explore existing and new ways of relating to the environment (human-nature relations), that may help counteract and adapt to global present and future challenges such as climate change, environmental degradation, and the loss of traditional knowledge.
Purpose
Using a co-creation of knowledge approach across generations, disciplines, nationalities, and ethnic backgrounds, we aim to deliver a unique educational experience that will build global bridges of friendship and train generations of ‘future-makers’ across the Amazon region and the world through an international immersion and a delegation to COP30 in Brazil.
This knowledge exchange and collaboration is across the areas of:
(a) diverse communities across the Amazon region
(b) global student communities from the UK and the Brazilian Amazon region
(c) academia and traditional indigenous knowledge(s)
It is essential for fostering innovation, building long-term resilience, and promoting sustainable development.
Application
Student video essay competition.
Additional Information
UBBI will provide pre-departure language and cultural training and translation services to support UoB participants. We anticipate a minimum of 24 students on the programme: 8 from UoB, 8 from UFPA and 8 indigenous student participants. We are currently looking into extending the programme to include students from across Amazonia. UBBI will cover the travel and accommodation costs of Birmingham participants. We also invite 4 UoB staff, involved in the Engage Amazonia programme, to participate in and contribute to the curriculum.
Voices of the Youth panel at COP 30
Voices of the Youth panel at COP 30
Date: November 2025
Location: Belém, Pará
Overview
A delegation of Amazonian Immersion students will attend COP 30 as part of an event at the Brazilian pavilion led by the Ministry of Environment, facilitating knowledge sharing, networking, and youth advocacy.
Purpose
In the medium and long-run, this knowledge exchange will lead to informing innovative policies that respect the integration of different worldviews and approaches to nature conservation, resilience of ecosystems, and human wellbeing, based on a plurality of lived experience.
Additional Information
The University of Birmingham will cover the travel and accommodation costs of Birmingham academics and students. Given constraints on access and accommodation, we anticipate that the delegation will involve 3 UoB students and up to 4 staff.
Engage Amazonia 2025 ISPF Early Career Fellowships in Research and Innovation
Engage Amazonia 2025 ISPF Early Career Fellowships in Research and Innovation
Date: 2025-2026 academic year
Location: University of Birmingham
Overview
Funded by the British Council International Science Partnerships Fund (ISPF) we are delighted to offer three fully-funded Early Career Fellowships for Brazilian researchers to spend a year at the University of Birmingham, working with a UoB academic host in one of the following research areas:
- Climate Change and Biodiversity
- Conservation and Restoration of Natural Capital
- Health Systems in the Amazon
Purpose
This joint collaboration between the University of Birmingham Brazil Institute (UBBI) the Birmingham Institute for Sustainability and Climate Action (BISCA), the Birmingham Institute for Forestry Research (BIFoR) and the Global Health Impact Hub at the University of Birmingham seeks to build and sustain medium to long-term partnerships between the University of Birminhgam and sending institutions, strenghening research capacity at both individual and institutional levels in Amazonian challenges.
Additional Information
The call will open on 15 February 2025 and closes on 15 May 2025, with one year fellowships commencing from September, October or November 2025.
Fully-funded fellowships will have an average value of £60K, covering monthly living stipend, travel, visa and insurance costs, IELTS and NHS surcharge.