Hydro’s companies in Brazil - Mineração Paragominas, Alunorte and Albras - signed agreements with UFPA on May 31. The next step will be a workshop between company professionals and researchers to define lines of inquiry.

Hydro's director of sustainability, Domingos Campos, said that the agreements with UFPA represent a range of opportunities in researching and developing new technologies.

"A company like ours cannot advance without the support of the academy. Only with the engagement of all society - government, citizens, universities and companies – we can have sustainable and lasting operations in Pará," Campos said.

For the Dean, Emanuel Tourinho, the agreement establishes an environment of collaboration between the university and the industrial sector.

"We have in UFPA a structure of production of knowledge about the Amazon region that’s very valuable and indispensable to leverage the state's productivity. It is important to integrate the two perspectives - technological and social - so that this production generates both wealth and income, and a living condition for the peoples of the Amazon, which guarantees them citizenship and access to fundamental rights," Tourinho said.

Tourinho's expectation is to broaden the interaction between the university and the industries in Pará.

"We know the importance of Hydro's work in the state, so this partnership is valuable. We want the knowledge produced by the Pará researchers to be incorporated into the decision-making processes on investments in the state," added Tourinho.

Research partners for six years

Hydro and UFPA have been partners since 2013 in the Brazil-Norway Biodiversity Research Consortium (BRC) in Paragominas, which includes the Federal Rural University of Amazonia (UFRA), the University of Oslo (UiO) and the Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi (MPEG).

The consortium seeks to achieve the highest level of development in ecological and environmental rehabilitation, based on science, as well as fostering education and research. About 100 professionals are involved in the research programs of the consortium. The BRC has already concluded several studies.