Omar Saeed, Project and Centre Manager for MANIFEST, at the Birmingham Centre for Energy Storage, University of Birmingham, discusses his recent trip to Sao Paulo, to explore the development of new collaborative research alliances between the UK and Brazil.

On Monday 13 March 2017, academics and professional services staff from the University of Birmingham travelled to Sao Paulo, Brazil, for a workshop focussed on developing new research alliances with Brazilian partners.

It was supposed to be a quick dash from Sao Paulo airport to Sao Paulo State University (UNESP), based in the ‘downtown’ part of the City. It very rapidly came to our attention that Monday morning traffic in Sao Paulo is equally as horrific as that of any major UK city.

On our arrival, our supportive UK colleagues let those of us who had travelled overnight to Brazil know just how “fresh” we looked, which was a great…