IARC and the Fundação Oswaldo Cruz sign Memorandum of Understanding for international cooperation

Dr Elisabete Weiderpass, Director of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), and Dr Priscila Ferraz Soares, Vice President for Health Production and Innovation of the Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (Fiocruz), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, yesterday signed a Memorandum of Understanding between the two institutions, with the objectives of co-developing research projects, increasing academic exchanges of researchers, better disseminating results and publications, and supporting evidence-based health policies. Dr Alexandre Padilha, the Minister of Health of Brazil, was also present to witness the signing of this important agreement.

Fiocruz is the largest biomedical research institution in Latin America. It is linked to the Ministry of Health of Brazil and has been intertwined with the development of public health in Brazil since its establishment in 1900. This Memorandum of Understanding between IARC and Fiocruz is the latest milestone of cooperation in decades of collaboration between IARC and Brazilian scientists and institutions.

The relationship of Brazilian researchers with IARC has enabled them to contribute to many IARC publications and research projects, perhaps most notably in recent years to the Latin America and the Caribbean Code Against Cancer, thus positioning Brazil as a reference country for cancer research, prevention, and capacity-building in Latin America and other low- and middle-income settings.

Brazil became an IARC Participating State in 2013, and IARC and the National Cancer Institute of Brazil (INCA) have worked closely together to establish the IARC–Brazil Learning Centre and the IARC–Brazil Summer Schools, aimed at researchers and health professionals from Brazil, neighbouring countries, and Portuguese-speaking low- and middle-income countries.

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Read the IARC Impact in Practice report for Brazil