Brazil announces scholarship program

BRASILIA, Brazil, Aug. 4 (UPI) -- Brazil has announced it will invest $2.02 billion by the end of 2014 in 75,000 science and technology scholarships that will send students abroad.

The commitment is part of the government's Science Without Borders program announced July 26, an article in Nature reported.

Brazil is one of the world's 10 largest economies and has a need for chemists, physicists, computer scientists and engineers, said Carlos Henrique de Brito Cruz, director of the Sao Paulo state research foundation.

"This will have a major impact in allowing Brazilian kids to take their ideas to the limit," he said.

There aren't enough students studying science and engineering to fill current demand, Aloizio Mercadante, the Brazilian minister of science and technology, said.

The scholarship program is intended to address the shortage by focusing on engineering, health sciences, life sciences and technology, he said.

The idea is to send students to top universities, mostly in the United States and United Kingdom. There are 238 foreign universities participating in the scholarship program, Mercadante said.