How to Improve Research Funding in Academia? Lessons From the COVID-19 Crisis

The landscape of biomedical research funding in Brazil: a current overview

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this narrative review is to discuss the current state of research funding in Brazil.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

This study is based on the most recent edition of the course Funding for Research and Innovation in the University of Sao Paulo School of Medicine which was a three-day course with 12 hours of instruction. The course brought together leading experts in the field to comprehensively discuss the current state of research funding in Brazil. Each speaker provided a presentation on a specific topic related to research funding. After the workshop, speakers assembled relevant topics in this manuscript.

RESULTS

collaborative research is critical for securing research funding. It optimizes proposal competitiveness, amplifies societal impact, and manages risks effectively. As such, fostering and supporting these collaborations is paramount for both researchers and funding agencies. To maintain the highest integrity in research, investigators involved in these collaborations must disclose any relationships that could potentially influence the outcomes or interpretation of their projects.

CONCLUSIONS

In Brazil, the mainstay of research funding stems from public entities, with agencies such as CNPq, CAPES, and state bodies like FAPESP, FAPERJ, FAPEMIG and others at the forefront. Concurrently, industry funding offers viable pathways, especially through industry-sponsored studies, investigator-led projects, and collaborative initiatives. The Brazilian funding landscape is further enriched by innovative platforms, including crowdfunding and the contributions of institutions like the Serrapilheira Institute. Internationally, esteemed organizations such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation stand out as potential funders.

A bibliometric approach to understanding the recent development of self-sufficient fish feed production utilizing agri-food wastes and by-products towards sustainable aquaculture

The global agri-food industry generates a large volume of waste annually, which causes both environmental and economic problems. Recently, there has been a growing interest in the use of agri-food wastes and by-products to produce self-sufficient fish feed. This study aimed to analyze the intellectual structure of the recent research on the utilization of agri-food wastes and by-products as self-sufficient fish feed materials based on 922 Scopus-indexed core collection documents from 252 journals written by 4420 authors from 73 countries with an annual growth rate of 18.65% over the last four years (2019-2022). This bibliometric study implemented knowledge domain visualization (KDV) using VOSViewer and Biblioshiny in the Bibliometrix R-package to investigate the basic scientometric profile of the selected fields. The results showed that Dawood M.A.O., with PageRanks of 0.0732, 19 total publications, 695 global citations from 2019 to 2022, and closeness values of 0.25, was the most productive author within the field. Subsequently, China was determined to be the most productive country (93 valid documents) and have the strongest collaboration network. Major research hotspots in the field included aquaculture and sustainable aquaculture, fish feed with agri-food waste, rainbow trout species, the development of a circular economy, probiotic applications, and cell signaling cytokines and peptides. This bibliometric study provides comprehensive information on the intellectual domain and research landscape on self-sufficient fish feed and also shows how interest in this research topic and similar ones is growing.