Uni signs MoU with Brazil’s PUC University in Minas Gerais

Brazil’s Pontifical Catholic University will work with researchers at Huddersfield’s Centre for Sustainable and Resilient Communities

A NEWLY-established link between the University of Huddersfield and a counterpart in one of Brazil’s largest cities will lead to joint research projects in fields such as social enterprise, waste recycling, prisoner rehabilitation through enterprise and urban farming, plus exchange visits for staff and students.

The agreement now signed with the Pontifical Catholic University (known as PUC) of Minas Gerais has been brokered by Dr Walter Mswaka, a Senior Lecturer in Business Strategy at the University Huddersfield and a member of its Centre for Sustainable and Resilient Communities, based in the University’s Business School.

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Dr Mswaka developed academic contacts with PUC staff several years ago and they have now burgeoned into a formal Memorandum of Understanding.  Already, a research collaboration between Dr Mswaka and Professor Armindo dos Santos de Sousa Teodósio of PUC – in which they examined a project  on the development and nurturing of entrepreneurship skills amongst Brazilian prisoners – has led to the presentation of a joint paper at a social enterprise conference held in Belgium.

Also contributing to this was Brazilian postgraduate Vander Aguiar, whose PhD project comparing urban agriculture in Brazil and the UK is being jointly supervised at PUC and the University of Huddersfield, where he has been based for a six-month period.

PUC is based in the city of Belo Horizonte.  It has population of over five million and is the capital of the state of Minas Gerais.  It has experienced dramatic growth in waste recycling over the past ten years, with the activity now recognised as a legitimate social enterprise, providing poor and homeless people with a means to sustain their livelihoods.

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This is one of the research areas covered by the MoU.  There will also be a comparison of the nature and practice of social enterprises involved in urban agriculture in the UK and Brazil, where the government, businesses and third sector organisations are seeking alternative ways to increase food production and improve the quality of life in cities.

Dr Mswaka has already paid several visits to Belo Horizonte and Professor Armindo de Sousa Teodósio has been to Huddersfield.  Now, the MoU will foster further exchange visits, and Dr Mswaka intends that the research collaboration, based around themes of entrepreneurship and social enterprise, should become multi-disciplinary, involving colleagues in fields such as marketing, finance and economics.

There is also a hope that increased numbers of Brazilian students could opt to come to study at the University of Huddersfield Business School.