We believe that scientific excellence occurs through:

– diversity in science;

– open and reproducible science;

– communication of science for its inclusion in the public debate;

– debureaucratization of science;

– transparency.

Find out more about each of our values:

Diversity in science

We believe that great results come from a science practiced based on uncertainty and risk and that this science is possible when there is freedom of ideas and a plurality of points of view. To this end, a more diverse group of young researchers who think about science from different perspectives is essential. Therefore, we encourage racial and gender diversity in science in Brazil.

In 2019, we launched a guide that consolidates our policies to support diversity in science and seeks to inspire our grantees and other institutions to promote inclusion actions, guiding those who wish to form more diverse research groups. Discover our “Best practices guide for diversity in science“.

Actions to encourage diversity adopted by Serrapilheira

• In our public calls, we extend the deadline for completing a doctorate by up to two years for candidates who are mothers;
• We created a support mechanism for grantees who become pregnant or have children during the term of the institute grant. They receive a maternity grant worth R$10,000 to be applied in the way that best suits the needs and life of each mother researcher. Nine grantees have already received the benefit, including Adriana Alves, Ayla Sant’Ana, Barbara Amaral, Cecilia Siliansky de Andreazzi, Fernanda Gervasoni, Karín Menéndez-Delmestre, Manager Lomonaco, Taicia Fill and Vanessa Staggemeier.
• We cover the costs of participation of breastfeeding-age children (up to 2 years old) and companions in events organized by the institute;
• We have established a bonus mechanism for inclusion actions: supported scientists can access extra resources to apply to the integration and training of people from underrepresented groups in research teams. Adherence to this mechanism is voluntary; that is, researchers can choose whether or not to receive the amount allocated to practices that encourage diversity;
• We made the contract term more flexible depending on the maternity leave period of the research mothers working in the grantees’ groups. We also encourage the payment of the scholarship to be maintained during maternity leave and that a maternity allowance is offered when possible. This payment must be made with the resources already approved for the project.
• We support projects promoting diversity in science, such as the Mukengi Project, Observatory of Affirmative Actions in Postgraduate Studies, Diversity in Brazilian Science and Oguntec.

Check our latest annual report (pages 22 and 23) to see some results of our actions.

Open and reproducible science

We start from the assumption that science is a practice that requires permanent review and, therefore, its access must be universal. Transparent, available and reproducible data facilitates collaboration for researchers, whether from a research point of view or sharing knowledge, reusing results, data and methods, being an essential procedure for advancing science and the reliability of its results. Discover our “Best practices guide in open and reproducible science“.

In our portfolio, we support two initiatives dedicated to this topic:

Brazilian Reproducibility Initiative

Supported since 2018, the Brazilian Reproducibility Initiative is a multicenter project for systematically replicating experiments published by Brazilian biomedical science in the last twenty years — a period when Brazilian science grew significantly in production volume. Brazil will be the first country to have a survey of this type. The network has more than 60 collaborating laboratories; in 2022, more than half of the experiments were completed. The project is scheduled for completion in 2023.

No-Budget Science Hack Week

The intensive one-week workshop aims to develop metascience research projects using publicly available data, following the no-budget philosophy: a laptop in your hand and an idea in your head. Participants develop research projects and/or tools that address significant issues in the modern scientific process: data availability, reliability, reproducibility, publication system, distribution of resources and funding, and training of scientists.

Other actions

We are signatories to DORA

The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) recognizes the need to improve how the results of academic research are evaluated. The statement was developed in 2012 during the American Society for Cell Biology Annual Meeting in San Francisco (USA).

It has become a worldwide initiative that spans all academic disciplines and all key stakeholders, including funders, publishers, professional societies, institutions, and scientists.

The overall commitment of DORA signatories is not to use journal-based metrics, such as impact factor, as an indirect measure of the quality of individual research articles to evaluate a scientist’s contributions, nor in hiring, promotion and/or financing.

When evaluating scientists, one of the specific commitments of funding agencies is to consider the value and impact of all results (including datasets and software) in addition to publications. Also, consider several other impact measures, such as the performance of the evaluated scientists in public policies.

Open science in constant debate

The topic is always present in the discussions we promote at Serrapilheira Meetings and webinars and in the talks we participate in at other events. Some examples:

In-person debate – Is pre-publication peer review good for science?, at the 6th Serrapilheira Scientific Retreat in 2022.

Webinar – Open science: how to do it, at the 5th Serrapilheira Scientific Retreat in 2021.

Metascience 2023 – we participated in the global event organized by the Center for Open Science in Washington DC (USA). The meeting seeks to share knowledge and build communities to define a research plan and intervention priorities to accelerate science and make it better.

Science communication

Constructing a scientifically informed society, which makes decisions based on evidence – from adhering to vaccines to combating climate change – involves including science in the public debate.

We invest in science communication to promote it as an ally of democratic advances and critical thinking. Through our actions, we seek to show the relationship between science and topics of public interest, such as politics, economics and health, and that it must be taken into account by decision-makers and public policy formulators.

Our actions take place in different ways. Meet the Journalism and Media Program and our institutional projects to know more.

Debureaucratization of science

It is essential to reduce bureaucratic barriers that delay — and sometimes prevent — the development of scientific research. The procedural difficulties that Brazilian scientists face in receiving and using resources, whether in purchasing equipment, importing inputs or hiring people, often mean that they adapt their projects to avoid these obstacles.

Consequently, scientists stop carrying out important experiments, follow paths that are not the best for developing their research, abandon their hypotheses, and adopt less risky and innovative approaches.

From the beginning, we have sought to contribute to the de-bureaucratization of science. The resources offered by Serrapilheira to its grantees, both in science and science communication, rely on flexibility and agility. In practice, this means that, from the moment the grantees are selected, we seek to make the resources available to them within a maximum of four months.

This goal implies having partners such as the investment management company BW, responsible for the institute’s administrative-financial area, and the Artur Bernardes Foundation, which mediates most of our grants, to speed up the transfer process to universities and organizations. We seek to dialogue with all interlocutors at this stage, from deans to administrative assistants, eliminating unnecessary steps and simplifying others.

Furthermore, the resources offered by Serrapilheira are flexible. In other words, they can be applied to any need that the grantee has to develop a project in the best way – be it buying equipment, importing inputs, hiring postdocs, paying scholarships for students, participating in international conferences or painting the laboratory.

We also participate in constant discussions in the scientific community about reducing bureaucracy in science, seeking to contribute with our experience.

Transparency

Although Serrapilheira is a private institute whose resources come from an endowment fund, we are committed to transparency in all our transfers and actions.

In the “Who do we support” section, you can find out about all the scientists from journalism and media/science outreach we have supported since the beginning of the institute’s activities, with the respective amounts passed on.

Furthermore, our annual reports and financial statements provide details of these transfers, other costs of the institute and our operations each year. They are available in the “Transparency” section, where you can also find our statutes, code of ethics and conduct and information about our reporting channel.