Gabriela Gomes Coelho Ferreira, Rodrigo Pedrosa Lyra, Amâncio Jorge Silva de Oliveira Measuring Brazilian science diplomacy:

what do internaonal students think of Brazil?

Measuring Brazilian science diplomacy:

what do international students think of

Brazil?

Avaliando a diplomacia cientíﬁca brasileira: o que os

estudantes internacionais pensam do Brasil?

Evaluando la diplomacia cientíﬁca brasileña: ¿qué piensan

los estudiantes internacionales de Brasil?

Gabriela Gomes Coelho Ferreira1

Rodrigo Pedrosa Lyra2

Amâncio Jorge Silva de Oliveira3

DOI: 10.5752/P.2317-773X.2022v10n4pXX-XX.

Recebido em: 30 de julho de 2021

Aprovado em: 14 de julho de 2023

A

Most of the scholarship programs came from developed countries. However,

more recently, the literature has analyzed international scholarship programs in

developing countries, such as the case of Brazil’s PEC-PG and PEC-G. The lite-

rature argues that international scholarship programs are science diplomacy’s

tools, such as ways of exercising power through the inuence of perception. In

this paper, we aim to examine PEC-PG and PEC-G students’ perceptions of Bra-

zil. We conducted a survey in 2019 based on a 2017 database (Lattes Platform).

Considering that PECs are a consistent Brazilian program dating back to the

1960s, a positive perception would be the expected result of a successful science

diplomacy policy. Descriptive statistics, however, show that most respondents

have a negative image of Brazil.

Keywords: science diplomacy; PEC-PG; PEC-G; Brazil; scholarships

R

A maioria dos programas de bolsas são de países desenvolvidos. No entanto,

mais recentemente, autores têm analisado programas de bolsas internacionais

em países em desenvolvimento, como é o caso do PEC-PG e do PEC-G do

Brasil. A literatura argumenta que os programas de bolsas internacionais são

ferramentas da diplomacia cientíca, ou seja, formas de exercício do poder pela

inuência da percepção. Neste artigo, buscamos examinar a percepção que

alunos do PEC-PG e do PEC-G tiveram do Brasil. Realizamos uma pesquisa, em

2019, com base em informações retiradas da Plataforma Lattes em 2017. Con-

siderando que os PECs são um programa brasileiro consistente, que remonta

à década de 1960, uma percepção positiva seria o resultado esperado de uma

1. Postdoctoral researcher at the

Department of Political Science at the

University of São Paulo (DCP-USP).

FAPESP Grant n. 2022/00077-2.

2. Postdoctoral researcher at the Center

for International Negotiations Studies at

the University of São Paulo (Caeni-USP).

CNPq Grant n. 151279/2023-3.

3. Full Professor at the Institute of

International Relations at the University

of São Paulo (IRI-USP).

estudos internacionais • Belo Horizonte, ISSN 2317-773X, v. 10, n. 4, (nov. 2022), p. 41-54

política de diplomacia cientíca bem-sucedida. Nossos resultados, baseados em

estatística descritiva, no entanto, mostram que a maioria dos entrevistados têm

uma imagem negativa do Brasil.

Palavras-chaves: diplomacia cientíca; PEC-PG; PEC-G; Brasil; bolsas

R

La mayoría de los programas de becas son de países desarrollados. Sin embargo,

más recientemente, autores han analizado programas de becas internacionales

en países en desarrollo, como es el caso de PEC-PG y PEC-G en Brasil. La

literatura sostiene que los programas de becas internacionales son herramien-

tas de la diplomacia cientíca, es decir, formas de ejercer el poder a través de la

inuencia de la percepción. En este artículo, buscamos examinar la percepción

que los estudiantes de PEC-PG y PEC-G tenían de Brasil. Realizamos una en-

cuesta, en 2019, basada en información tomada de la Plataforma Lattes en 2017.

Considerando que los PEC son un programa brasileño consistente, que data de

la década de 1960, una percepción positiva sería el resultado esperado de una

ciencia bien establecida. política diplomática. Sin embargo, nuestros resultados,

basados en estadísticas descriptivas, muestran que la mayoría de los encuestados

tienen una imagen negativa de Brasil.

Palabras claves: diplomacia cientíca; PEC-PG; PEC-G; Brasil; becas

Introduction

International scholarship programs for higher education allow

thousands of people worldwide to study outside their country of origin

every year. These initiatives are supported by governments, supranation-

al organizations, and charities as part of both public diplomacy (Mawer,

2014) and soft power strategy (Ferreira; Oliveira, 2020). Scholarship pro-

viders increasingly invest in evaluating the results of these systems by

analyzing the trajectories of students and alumni during and after the

scholarship to assess their progress toward the objectives of the scholar-

ship program policy. However, in Brazil there is no systematic evaluating

system regarding studentships. In this article, we aim to contribute to the

literature by oering descriptive statistics about two important Brazilian

scholarships: The Program for Partner Undergraduate Students (PEC-G)

and the Program for Partner Postgraduate Students (PEC-PG).

Policies linked to education, science, and technology activities

have historically stimulated integration among nations and reinforced

long-lasting partnership ties (Domingues, 2019). On this note, science

diplomacy can be described as engaging with foreign governments and

international students to achieve a positive relationship or a positive im-

age abroad (Turekian, 2018). For the same reasons, exchange programs

and scholarships are standard tools for bringing countries together. In

this regard, scholarship programs that enable the exchange of students

are among the leading contemporary instruments of science diplomacy.

Recently, the literature has analyzed international scholarship pro-

grams in developing countries (Bonilla; Seram; Bámaca-López, 2021;

Echeverría-King et al., 2022; Quiroga, 2021). Some authors have studied

the development of the Brazilian strategy of using the educational agen-

Gabriela Gomes Coelho Ferreira, Rodrigo Pedrosa Lyra, Amâncio Jorge Silva de Oliveira Measuring Brazilian science diplomacy:

what do internaonal students think of Brazil?

da as a foreign policy tool, with particular attention to PEC-PG (Candeas,

2005; Cortés Diaz, 2013, 2013; Ferreira; Oliveira, 2020; Iglecias, 2013) 4. In

this paper, we aim to answer the following research question: what is the

perception of Brazil among PEC-PG and PEC-G students?

We consider that international scholarship programs are science

diplomacy’s tools, in other words, ways of exercising power through the

inuence of perception (Ferreira, 2019). We aim to contribute to the lit-

erature by measuring how eectively PEC-G and PEC-PG have boosted

Brazil’s image abroad. Considering that PECs are consistent Brazilian

programs dating back to 1960’s, students’ positive views would be the

expected result of a successful science diplomacy policy. However, after

a survey sent to 65,493 international students and researchers, the result

was quite dierent from what we expected. Even though we found no

evidence that the negative perception directly results from being part of

the PECs, most respondents hold a negative perception of Brazil, as we

will explain in the following sections.

This paper is organized as follows: following the introduction,

there is a literature review on science diplomacy and international schol-

arships. Next, we explain the history behind both PEC-G and PEC-PG

and how they align with the Brazilian foreign policy strategy. In the third

section, we present the research design of this paper and the survey we

applied. Fourth, we discuss the main results and some of the literature’s

possible explanations for them. Finally, we make nal remarks.

1. Literature review

It is possible to analyze the concept of science diplomacy in two pri-

mary approaches. “The rst one is related to the French diplomatic tradi-

tion, which mixes university policy, science policy, and language diusion

by considering science as one of several vectors of a country’s cultural poli-

cy and of its inuence on the global scene (…) justied by the ultimate pur-

pose of inuence. Science diplomacy is part of soft power, and so are the in-

ternational promotion of national language or cinema, etc.” (Runi, 2017,

p. 15). The second conceptual approach, which is linked to the Anglo-Saxon

denition of science diplomacy, distinguishes science diplomacy from cul-

tural diplomacy by arguing that they are independent policies. However,

based on recent empirical evidence (Ferreira; Oliveira, 2020), we argue that

the Brazilian government has not treated science, cultural, and educational

diplomacy as dierent dimensions. In this article, we use the broad concept

of SD rather than educational diplomacy or cultural diplomacy.

By analyzing both diplomatic and government documents, Fer-

reira and Oliveira (2020) argue that the French denition of SD is more

aligned with the Brazilian policies led by the government since the 1960s.

According to the authors, the Brazilian government has used culture,

science, and education as foreign policy tools to build a positive image

abroad. The Brazilian Cultural Agreements is a telling example of how

the Brazilian government employs science, education, and diplomacy in

a complementary fashion. Furthermore, between the 1920s and 1940s,

France played a vital role in Brazil by increasing its political inuence

4. However, no empirical studies focu-

sing on the opinion of foreign students,

whose objective was to measure the

success of these strategies, or even

their determinants, were found.

estudos internacionais • Belo Horizonte, ISSN 2317-773X, v. 10, n. 4, (nov. 2022), p. 41-54

through its cultural diplomacy (Suppo, 2000, p. 309). As a result, Brazilian

science diplomacy considers science” “essential to the society’s develop-

ment” (Ferreira; Oliveira, 2020). Finally, between 2011 and 2020, the Bra-

zilian National Postgraduate Plan (PNPG), which is part of the Brazilian

National Education Plan (PNE), stated that the internationalization of

higher education was expected to “increase Brazil’s role in the interna-

tional arena” (Capes, 2010, p. 303). This government goal is related to the

third dimension of SD.

Literature divides science diplomacy into three dimensions: sci-

ence in diplomacy, diplomacy for science, and science for diplomacy. The

rst one is related to the role of science in curbing environmental threats.

The second one seeks to increase collaboration between scientists and re-

searchers. Finally, “science for diplomacy” regards the use of scientic co-

operation to improve bilateral and multilateral relations among countries

(The royal society, 2010), which aligns with the Brazilian government

goals mentioned previously.

The literature denes SD in dierent yet similar ways, such as the

“practices in which actions of researchers and of diplomats interact” (Ruf-

ni, 2017, p. 16) and “scientic cooperation and engagement with the ex-

plicit intent of building positive relationships with foreign governments

and societies” (Turekian; Lord, 2009). In this vein, science diplomacy is

a vehicle to foreign policy goals (Epping, 2020). Most of the literature

are concerned with the networks and connections between recipients of

scholarships and the host country (Mawer, 2014). Some authors analyze

the impact of SD in emerging economies by alleviating asymmetries be-

tween the North and the Global South (Bonilla; Seram; Bámaca-López,

2021; Hornsby; Parshotam, 2018). Some works have been concerned with

the eect of co-authorship on doctoral publications thanks to the collab-

oration between dierent knowledge areas and between dierent coun-

tries (Böhmer; Von Ins, 2009; Jacob; Lefgren, 2011).

We argue that science and educational diplomacy are complemen-

tary concepts in Brazil, as the Brazilian government uses them all togeth-

er to increase international leverage (Ferreira; Oliveira, 2020). Further-

more, by analyzing science and educational diplomacy as SD, we agree to

some authors who believe that the focus of analysis should be “the place

of knowledge and expertise in state interactions” (Hornsby; Parshotam,

2018, p. 30). Therefore, we use the idea of SD as our primary conceptual

approach to analyze the perception of international students.

When we think of diplomacy and public perception, we usually

think of soft power. Some authors argue that science diplomacy is a po-

litical resource related to both hard and soft power (Runi, 2017). While

science is hard power concerning defense policies, thereis also a broader

scope of scientic initiatives related to the use of persuasion (Runi, 2017).

For instance, a given country seeks to increase its inuence abroad by cre-

ating a positive image among international students. The argument goes

that some international students might become the future elites and deci-

sion-makers of their respective countries, which is a reason to forge closer

ties with them. In this paper, we advocate the idea that science diplomacy

means precisely the use of science to boost diplomatic inuence abroad.

Gabriela Gomes Coelho Ferreira, Rodrigo Pedrosa Lyra, Amâncio Jorge Silva de Oliveira Measuring Brazilian science diplomacy:

what do internaonal students think of Brazil?

2. PEC-G and PEC-PG: an overview

Brazil’s PEC-G and PEC-PG were both created during the dicta-

torship rule (1964–1985). The Program for Partner Undergraduate Stu-

dents (PEC-G) was ocially established by Decree No. 55613 (1965)5 by

the rst military president, President Castelo Branco. Later, PEC-PG was

created during President Figueiredo’s administration in 1981. PEC-G and

PEC-PG’s ocial objective is to improve the qualication of university

professors, researchers, professionals, and graduates of higher education,

aiming to contribute to the development of their countries. These pro-

grams seem to emulate other international scholarship programs, such

as Fulbright in the United States, Chevening in the United Kingdom, and

Erasmus Mundus in the European Union. The donor countries of these

programs, according to some authors, seek to culturally inuence other

countries as a power strategy (Ferreira; Oliveira, 2020; Trilokekar, 2010).

Under PEC-G, students can undertake their undergraduate studies

in Brazil for free. And, in cases related to merit or economic needs, Brazil

may provide funds for these students after the rst year of study. In some

instances, the Brazilian government provides these students with return

tickets to their country of origin. PEC-G has been running by Itamaraty,

through the Division of Educational Themes, and by the Ministry of Edu-

cation (MEC), in partnership with higher education institutions through-

out the country. According to ocial web pages, the idea of creating a

government program to support students from other countries followed

the increasing number of foreigners in Brazil in the 1960s. The objective

was to regulate the status of these students in Brazil by unifying the con-

ditions of student exchange and ensuring that universities would give

similar treatment to students (Ferreira; Oliveira, 2020, p. 100).

The PEC-PG program is slightly dierent: since it is focused on grad-

uate students—and, therefore, on research and knowledge production,

not only does it oer the course for free, but it also comprehends a grant of

the same value received by Brazilian students, as well as the return tickets.

The PEC-PG was ocially established in 1981, with its rst protocol and

updated in 2006. The program is administered by three agencies: Ministry

of Foreign Aairs (Ministério das Relações Exteriores—MRE), through the

Division of Educational Themes (Divisão de Temas Educacionais—DCE);

Ministry of Education (Ministério da Educação e Cultura—MEC), through

the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel

(Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior—CAPES); and

the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (Ministério da Ciên-

cia, Tecnologia, Inovações e Comunicações— MCTIC), through the National

Council for Scientic and Technological Development (Conselho Nacional

de Desenvolvimento Cientíco e Tecnológico—CNPq) (Ferreira; Oliveira, 2020)

The goals of PEC-G and PEC-PG go beyond development and assistance

objectives. Instead, they present political purposes, as they intend to build long-

term bilateral relations and positive perceptions regarding Brazil. As some of

these students might become the future leaders or decision-makers of their

countries, a positive image of Brazil is the main objective, as it is the country’s

soft power asset. Therefore, it is a condition of PEC-G and PEC-PG programs6

5. PEC-G is currently governed by

Decree No. 7948 (2013), which was

designed to provide further legal force

to PEC-G’s regulation.

6. Currently, both programs are part of

the Brazilian Cooperation for Internatio-

nal Development (COBRADI). According

to the last report released in 2013 by the

Brazilian Agency for Cooperation (ABC)

and the Institute for Applied Economic

Research (IPEA) on COBRADI, this policy

is classiﬁed as educational cooperation.

estudos internacionais • Belo Horizonte, ISSN 2317-773X, v. 10, n. 4, (nov. 2022), p. 41-54

for students to return to their countries of origin, and, as an incentive for such,

the return ticket is included in the grant (Ferreira, 2019). In this paper, we an-

alyze the students’ perception of Brazil as we believe this is the most crucial

measure of soft power regarding the role of this studentship program.

3. Research design

In this paper, we aim to answer the following research question:

what is the perception of Brazil among PEC-PG and PEC-G students?

Through descriptive statistics, the main objective of this research is to

verify the impact of PEC-PG and PEC-G (independent variable) on the

perception of international students (dependent variable). We conducted

a survey in 2019 based on a 2017 database (Lattes), as we explain below.

Most of the literature on international scholarships based their analy-

sis on interviews (Jacob; Lefgren, 2011; Mawer, 2014; Quiroga, 2021; Tureki-

an, 2018). Therefore, creating surveys is the primary tool for data collection

in these cases. Following the examples of these works, in this paper, we

conducted a survey by sending an invitation to the e-mail to 65,493 students

and professors through SurveyMonkey7. We created the database through

the Lattes Platform8. This website makes it possible to search specically

for foreign researchers and international students working in Brazil. We

downloaded all the students’ curricula and their e-mails, which would be

pivotal in sending them our survey. Following the literature (Amos et al.,

2009; Day; Geddes, 2008), we based our questions on variables such as so-

cio-demographics of candidates, scholarship process and satisfaction, re-

turn to home country, and so on, as we will show in the next section of this

article. Our quantitative analysis of this self-report survey is descriptive as

we intended to get an overview of the students’ perceptions of Brazil.

In June 2019, we sent 65,493 invitations in seven days, respecting

the daily limit of SurveyMonkey: 6 days sending 10,000 invitations per

day and one day to send the last 5,493. Until June 24, the survey had been

opened by 4,984 people or 7.6% of the total—which was above expected.

Nevertheless, out of these 4,984 students, only 65% completed the survey.

Since we had a heterogeneous dataset containing all international students

and researchers with a curriculum at Lattes Platform, we divided the sur-

vey into three main groups. The rst primary division was between those

who had never studied in Brazil (G1) and those who did or were presently

having an educational experience in Brazil (G2). This second group (G2),

the group of students, was subdivided between those who are still stu-

dents (G2.1) and those who had this experience in the past (G2.2): the divi-

sion makes sense since the questions should be dierent for them.

All three groups answered the page concerning the perception of Bra-

zil and provided socioeconomic details. But only those who were students

in Brazil answered the extended version regarding this experience—and the

factors that could have shaped their perception. Accordingly, the survey was

designed to measure each concept and variable through the indicators pre-

sented. As described in Table 1, we organized the survey where the depen-

dent variables are highlighted in bold, and the leading independent variables

are highlighted in italic. In this paper, we focus on the image of Brazil.

7. SurveyMonkey is platform that allows

the creation and administration of

online surveys.

8. The Lattes Platform is an integrated

database led by the BrazilianNational

Council for Scientiﬁc and Technologi-

cal Development(CNPq) to manage

information on individual researches

and institutions working in Brazil. Lattes

is also a good source of data on science,

technology, and innovation, as all

researchers and institutions are required

to keep their records updated.

Gabriela Gomes Coelho Ferreira, Rodrigo Pedrosa Lyra, Amâncio Jorge Silva de Oliveira Measuring Brazilian science diplomacy:

what do internaonal students think of Brazil?

Table 1 – Survey Structure

Question Group 1- Did not

study in Brazil

Group 2 – Current Students Group 3 - Former Students

Question Number Question Number

Gender 1 1 1

Citizenship 2 2 2

Place of residence 3 3 3

Education 4 4 4

Father’s profession 5 5 5

Mother’s profession 6 6 6

Father’s education 7 7 7

Mother’s education 8 8 8

Current Image of Brazil 9 9 9

Is Brazil a leader? 10 10 10

Brazilian cooperation with your country 11 11 11

Soft to Hard Experiment: OECD; NATO; UN 12 12 12

Division between non-students and students 13 13 13

Division between PECs and non-PECs End 14 14

Division between current and former students  15 15

Date of arrival in Brazil  16 36

Which program is an active student of?  17 

Departure from Brazil  18 37

IES  19 39

Area of knowledge  20 38

Why Brazil?  21 40

The importance of your experience in Brazil  22 41

Have you lived in Brazil before? Control  23 42

Did you live in another country? Control  24 43

Which country is the former Control  25 44

What was the image of Brazil before the

experience in the country?  26 45

Degree of satisfaction with Brazilian institu-

tions (embassies, MRE, IES, MEC)  27 46

Reviews 27  28 47

What are your difﬁculties in Brazil?  29 48

Name / E-mail  30 56

Date of birth  31 57

Want to be part of an alumni network?  32 58

Contact  33 59

Division (alumni/students): Did you ﬁnish your

studies in Brazil?   34

Why did you not ﬁnish your studies in Brazil?

Complements question 34   35

What did you do after being a Brazilian

student?   49

Did you work after?   50

Where did you work?   51

estudos internacionais • Belo Horizonte, ISSN 2317-773X, v. 10, n. 4, (nov. 2022), p. 41-54

Question Group 1- Did not

study in Brazil

Group 2 – Current Students Group 3 - Former Students

Question Number Question Number

What is your professional area?   52

Do you have activities in partnership with

Brazilians?   53

Do you consider yourself a leader?   54

Has your experience in Brazil contributed to

your professional position?   55

Source: Elaborated by the authors

4. Discussion and results

The use of education as a foreign policy tool is usually associ-

ated with developed countries. However, major developing countries

have started to adopt strategies for the new international arena, which

is constantly aected by technological transformations (Cortés Diaz,

2013; Quiroga, 2021). Those strategies include scientic and educa-

tional agreements that aim to exchange knowledge and shape public

opinion. In this regard, Brazil has a mixed foreign policy that aims to

foster development but, at the same time, benets from it by having

developing countries’ elites connected with the country. It comes as no

surprise that Brazil’s Ministry of Foreign Aairs has an essential role

in the administration of both PEC-G and PEC-PG programs (Ferreira;

Oliveira, 2020, p. 100)

Brazilian ocial discourse stresses three main lines through

which education is used as a foreign policy tool. In cooperation, it in-

tends to help other Global South countries’ development by qualify-

ing their human capital, which would attract foreign investment and

technology. Culturally, it fosters the coexistence of people from dif-

ferent backgrounds, enhancing mutual understanding and tolerance.

And politically, it tries to construct Brazil’s image as a vital actor to

these foreign citizens, projecting the country in the transnational are-

na, along with its ideas, values, and discourse (Ferreira; Oliveira, 2020)

Therefore, we argue in this paper that the granting of international

scholarships is a governmental strategy of power that seeks to increase

the inuence of one country over another through critical individuals

who are or will become elites, opinion-makers, and decision-makers.

Considering the importance of the perception of key individuals

in political decision-making, it is crucial to analyze these international

students’ perceptions of Brazil’s position in the transnational arena. How-

ever, despite Brazil’s eorts, we nd that international students and re-

searchers did not have a good image of Brazil (Graph 1). Their perception

was worse after living and studying in the country (Table 2). The results

are displayed in Graph 1.

Gabriela Gomes Coelho Ferreira, Rodrigo Pedrosa Lyra, Amâncio Jorge Silva de Oliveira Measuring Brazilian science diplomacy:

what do internaonal students think of Brazil?

Graph 1 - In general, how do you currently evaluate Brazil’s image?

Source: Elaborated by the authors

In Graph 1, the black area shows the percentage of respondents

with a negative perception of Brazil, and the gray area represents those

with a positive image of the country. According to the survey, 58.57%

out of the 3,333 respondents have a negative perception of Brazil. This re-

sult is entirely unexpected, given that some authors point out that those

who choose to answer surveys tend to be more positive regarding their

evaluation (Mawer, 2014). In this regard, Mawer (2014) argues that this

is indeed a problem concerning surveys in general, as their result might

be lopsided. However, in this survey, we found more negative than posi-

tive answers about students’ perceptions of Brazil (Graph 1). Interestingly,

90,74% of the 2,339 respondents have had a good image before their expe-

rience in Brazil, as shown in Table 2. The results indicate that studying in

Brazil harms the perception of the respondents.

Table 2 – Comparison between previous and current perceptions of

Brazil’s image

Students of Brazilian educational institutions

Negative

Count

In general, how do you currently evaluate Brazil’s image?

Positive Total

Count Count

How did you evaluate the image of Brazil before

living in the country as a student of a Brazilian

institution of higher education?

Negative 150 (70%) 65 (30%) 215

Positive 1277 (60%) 847 (40%) 2124

Source: Elaborated by the authors

Evaluations of scholarships should consider the scholarship recipi-

ent’s perception of the host country’s international reputation (Ferreira;

Oliveira, 2020). Therefore, the second question about the Brazilian image

required respondents to classify Brazil, choosing from four categories:

regional leader, world leader, mediator, and follower of the great powers.

Most answers reected a division between perceiving Brazil as a follower

of great powers or a regional leader (Graph 2). Either way, respondents

see Brazil as a relevant player in international politics.

estudos internacionais • Belo Horizonte, ISSN 2317-773X, v. 10, n. 4, (nov. 2022), p. 41-54

Graph 2 - Among the following alternatives, which is the most appropriate to de-

scribe Brazil and its insertion in the world scenario?

Source: Elaborated by the authors

In the 1990s, Brazilian foreign policy was marked by its willingness

to accept the international agenda, integrate with the mainstream dy-

namics, and adhere to the multilateral regimes of the new global order.

Since 2000, however, Brazil has been oriented towards constructing a le-

gitimate identity based on values created by developed countries: solidar-

ity and struggle for domestic and international equality. Brazil’s desire to

inuence the international order and regimes must be understood mainly

in soft forms of power, based on attraction strategies, especially avoiding

military force in its demands (Lessa; Altemani, 2012). Thus, it is possible

to arm that Brazilian foreign policy favors processes of persuasion and

attraction (Ferreira, 2019). Graph 2 shows that many respondents believe

Brazil is a regional leader, which might be a consequence of the foreign

policy guidelines of the 2000s.

Since 2002, after the rise of the Workers’ Party to the Brazilian gov-

ernment with the victory of President Lula, a change in political align-

ment—from North-South to South-South—was the main characteristic

of Brazilian foreign policy (Ferreira; Oliveira, 2020; Lessa; Altemani,

2012). The Brazilian government prioritizes the Global South by devel-

oping coordinating partnerships, the so-called South-South Coopera-

tion (Iglesias Puente, 2010). According to the ocial discourse, unlike

the North-South relationship, South-South cooperation intends to treat

political, economic, and technical interests among developing countries

with a more horizontal approach. An example of such cooperation was

the growing importance of the Program for Partner Graduate Students–

PEC- PG (Ferreira, 2019).

Gabriela Gomes Coelho Ferreira, Rodrigo Pedrosa Lyra, Amâncio Jorge Silva de Oliveira Measuring Brazilian science diplomacy:

what do internaonal students think of Brazil?

Graph 2 shows that both students’ and researchers’ perception of

Brazil’s geopolitical position in the international arena aligns with the Bra-

zilian diplomatic goal of being a leader in the region and a vital represen-

tative of the Global South. Even though it is not possible to state that this

perception comes from these students’ experience in PEC-G and PEC-PG,

they could have had a negative perception of Brazil’s power in interna-

tional politics after living and studying in the country. It is interesting to

notice that despite the overall negative perception of Brazil (Graph 1), both

students and researchers think Brazil plays a signicant role in regional

politics, which raises the question: is their negative image of Brazil (Graph

1) related to the country itself or the academic life in Brazil?

Table 3 evaluates the main diculties students and researchers

faced during their experience at a Brazilian educational institution. Issues

related to establishing academic contacts after nishing the studies and

the lack of information when choosing the course and the city appear as

common problems in other international studentships. Therefore, they

are probably more related to challenges and diculties in academic life

rather than specic problems of Brazil’s PEC-G and PEC-PG. In this ar-

ticle, we did not evaluate political variables that could have constrained

students’ experience in Brazil. However, considering that almost half of

the respondents (47.55%) reported they did not have any diculties, it is

not unreasonable to argue that institutional arrangements were not pre-

cisely the reason for their negative perception of Brazil.

Table 3 – Difﬁculties related to the Brazilian experience

Please indicate the main difﬁculties you faced during your experience as a student at a Brazilian educational institution (before,

during, and/or after the experience in Brazil)

Answer Choices Responses

I had no difﬁculties 47,55% 796

I could not establish professional partnerships after ﬁnishing my studies 20,73% 347

Other 16,97% 284

I did not have enough accompaniment and information when I was choosing the course/city 15,17% 254

I could not establish academic contacts after ﬁnishing my studies 11,95% 200

I did not have support from the Brazilian government during my stay in Brazil 10,33% 173

I had difﬁculty proving Portuguese proﬁciency before arriving in Brazil 7,35% 123

I did not have support from the Institution of Higher Education during my stay in Brazil 5,38% 90

I could not establish academic contacts during my stay in Brazil 4,78% 80

I could not establish friendly relations during my stay in Brazil 4,54% 76

Total Answered 1674

Source: Elaborated by the authors

Conclusion

The existing literature increasingly pays attention to education, sci-

ence, and technology as foreign policy tools. Most developed countries

have been using cooperation programs as soft power assets to forge clos-

estudos internacionais • Belo Horizonte, ISSN 2317-773X, v. 10, n. 4, (nov. 2022), p. 41-54

er ties with foreign elites and decision-makers. As a developing country,

Brazil plays an interesting position in international politics by being a

developing country while at the same time seeking leadership and power

in the global arena. This is why Brazil created the PEC-G and PEC-PG

programs under dictatorship rule in the 1960s. This paper aimed to ana-

lyze both programs through descriptive statistics based on a survey.

Evaluating the PECs is essential to measure the impact of govern-

ment investments and inform the program reformulation and improve-

ment based on the information obtained. However, an essential feature

of this policy is the lack of institutional evaluation by Brazil’s Ministry of

Foreign Aairs. Although some academic work has been done on the sub-

ject, mainly because of the focus on South-South cooperation adopted by

the last governments, there is no consistent evaluation being carried out

by the government. A longitudinal study would be important to evaluate

the program’s outcomes and to assess the factors that contribute to either

the success or failure of this educational policy.

Considering that Brazil’s PEC-G and PEC-PG were created to in-

crease the country’s soft power, the results in this paper are not only es-

sential to evaluate Brazil’s studentship programs. Instead, we argue that

the perception of international students is an indispensable component of

evaluating Brazil’s soft power policy. In this article, we found that most

respondents hold a negative perception of Brazil. This perception is worse

after their experience of living and studying in the country. We nd no

evidence that the negative perception directly results from being part of

the PECs, though. Almost half of the respondents reported no diculties

regarding educational constraints. On this note, political variables might

explain the negative perception of the country. However, this and other

potential factors require further research.

In this paper, we did not have the purpose of conducting quantita-

tive research by isolating and measuring correlation between variables9.

Therefore, we cannot make overall assumptions on the causes of the

negative perception of Brazil. However, descriptive statistics are essential

tools to analyze and understand public policies. This paper shows that

the current perception of Brazil among international students is negative,

which should bring attention to potential setbacks.

We believe further research on Brazil’s PECs would benet from

longitudinal analysis over time. A structured evaluation of the selection

processes, for instance, could provide important information according

to up-to-date methodological designs. Furthermore, the Brazilian gov-

ernment could greatly benet from a consistent monitoring system on

the PEC-G and PEC-PG programs. Future investigations could examine

what types of factors, besides the participation in PEC-PG/G, might have

shaped students’ negative perception of Brazil. Such data would allow the

development of accountability tools, for instance. Implementing a sys-

tematic evaluation process for both programs should be the next step for

Brazilian policymakers. In this regard, partnerships between the govern-

ment and research institutions would allow further developments and a

more eective science diplomacy.

9. See Ferreira, G. G. C., Pereira, L.

D., Onuki, J., & Oliveira, A. J. S. N.

de. (2022). The effects of the higher

education exchange programs on the

elites’ image of Brazil. Revista Tempo do

Mundo, ( 28). doi:10.38116/rtm28art9.

Gabriela Gomes Coelho Ferreira, Rodrigo Pedrosa Lyra, Amâncio Jorge Silva de Oliveira Measuring Brazilian science diplomacy:

what do internaonal students think of Brazil?

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