Belmont Forum members, partners, and guests from around the world gathered in São Paulo, Brazil for a week of meetings, on 6th – 10th November 2017, hosted by FAPESP, at the science-policy-society interface.
The activity aimed to spur new and strengthen existing scientific funding and management partnerships to more effectively address critical needs at the science-society-policy interface. On the first day of this event, the Belmont Forum held an Americas Regional Info Day in which funding and coordination organizations and lead experts from the region can connect with the Belmont Forum, and explore the added value of Belmont-funded research, emerging goals and shared priorities in the Americas and with the globe, and encourage discussion about partnering to meet research and stakeholder challenges.
Then, on the second day of the meeting, representatives of the Belmont Forum, and the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research led a meeting to discuss with potential partners a framework for American regional funding that enables all economies and institutions to join. Then, later on the same day, members and partners could have a closed session in which they discussed critical business. Then on November 8th – 9th, participants could attend to different plenaries related to joint funding, and other issues arisen from the discussion.Outcomes of the Plenary included the launch of a CRA focused on Science-Driven e-Infrastructure Innovation for the Enhancement of Transnational and Interdisciplinary Data Use and the endorsement of Data Skills Training Curricula developed by the Belmont Forum e-Infrastructure and Data Management project co-led by the ICSU World Data System.
Finally, on November 10th, the activity concluded with two parallel meetings: one entitled “Towards a Global Forum of Research Funding Agencies, Foundations and Development Agencies: a planning meeting of partners” and a scoping workshop for a proposed Food Security and Safety Collaborative Research Action (CRA) of the Belmont Forum.
Both ICSU Headquarters and ICSU ROLAC representatives could participate in this important gathering. ICSU HQ was represented by Dr. Heide Hackman, Executive Director; and Dr. Katsia Paulevets, Science Officer. Then, ICSU ROLAC was represented by Dr. Manuel Limonta, Regional Director; and Lic. Claudia Marroquin, Liaison Officer.