Brazil's Ministry of Education (MEC/CAPES) is inviting applications for the Rio Branco Chair at the University of Oxford for the 2013 calendar year. Read more

President Rousseff said this week that in sustaining economic growth while reducing inequality, Brazil has moved beyond the old adage that "the cake needs to get bigger before it can be cut into more equal slices". Read more

During the recent visit to Brazil by the UK's Secretary of State for International Development, Andrew Mitchell, the two countries discussed further ways of sharing expertise so as to boost agriculture in developing countries. Read more

Representatives from 53 countries will be converging on Brasília for the annual meeting of the Open Government Partnership (OGP) on 17-18 April. The OGP was created last year to foster international cooperation aimed at making governments more transparent, effective and accountable. Brazil and the United Kingdom were among its founding members. Read more

The University of Campinas UNICAMP ( Brazil ) is currently accepting submissions for São Paulo School of Advanced Studies. This is a one-week summer seminar on “Globalization of Culture in Nineteenth Century” that will take place in Campinas , Brazil (August 20th to 24th). Read more

Ambassador Jaguaribe met with Carwyn Jones, First Minister of Wales, during a visit to Cardiff on 26 March. Among the issues they discussed were the growing links between Brazil and Wales in the field of education, which include the participation of five Welsh universities in the Brazilian Government's Science without Borders programme. Read more

Launched last year by Brazil's Ministry of Education and Ministry of Science and Technology, the Science without Borders programme will offer grants to more than 100 thousand Brazilian students so that they can study science-related subjects at universities around the world, both at undergraduate and postgraduate level. This month 5,800 scholarships are being made available for university places in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Holland, Portugal, South Korea and Spain. From 26 April there will be 20 doctorate scholarships for study in the UK at the universities of Nottingham and Birmingham. Read more

During a three-day visit to Rio de Janeiro the prince declared that Brazil and the UK have a "flourishing partnership" in diverse areas such as innovation, education, technology and fashion, and that the two countries are "forging bonds that will stand the test of time". Read more

Meeting this week in Brasília, Brazil's Minister of External Relations Antonio Patriota and European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton said they were confident there will be significant progress in negotiations towards a Brazil-EU trade deal in 2012. Brazil's total trade with the EU is greater than with any single country including China and the United States: last year it totalled almost $100bn. Read more

Brazili's foreign minister Antonio Patriota said this week that the attempts at mediation in the Syrian crisis should be conducted with "greater urgency" in the wake of the veto by China and Russia of a UN resolution that would have put pressure on President Assad to step down. Read more

Brazilian holidays are more likely to bring to mind sand than saddles, but major investment in new cycle paths around the country has made cicloturismo an increasingly attractive option. The various networks of cycle paths, stretching 2,500 kilometres, include excellent routes in Rio de Janeiro, Curitiba and the state of Santa Catarina. Read more

Brazilian foreign minister Antonio Patriota had talks with UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon this week while attending the World Economic Forum in Switzerland. He also participated in a lively debate entitled 'Is democracy up to the challenge of the 21st century?' Read more

Speaking at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre this week, President Dilma Rousseff expressed sympathy with the 'indignation' behind the recent international protests against social and economic inequality. The 'dissonance between the voice of the markets and the voice of the streets' is increasing, she said. Read more

William Hague this week made a two-day visit to Brazil during which he met with foreign minister Antonio Patriota and defence minister Celso Amorim. A joint communiqué spoke of a 'new momentum' in the Brazil-UK relationship – recently reflected by the significant increase in bilateral trade. It also covered the UK's support for Brazil as a permanent member of a reformed UN Security Council, continued cooperation on hosting the Olympics, and the growing partnership between the two countries' academic institutions. Hague said during the visit that the UK welcomes Brazil's 'growing impact on the economic and political landscape of the world'. Read more

Finance minister Guido Mantega predicts that Brazil's economy will grow by between 4% and 5% during 2012. In an overview of Brazil's economic performance during 2011 he expressed particular satisfaction with the rate of job creation, which has seen unemployment fall to a historic low of 5.2%. Read more

Brazil last year achieved an agricultural trade surplus of almost $80bn – the biggest since records began. The main exports were soy, sugar, ethanol and meats, while the principal importers were the European Union, China, the US, Russia and Japan. Read more