Infraestructure for research at the Center for Nuclear Energy in Agriculture (CENA/USP) - Year 2022

• Grant number: 22/15628-4
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Technical Reserve for Institutional Research Infrastructure
• Duration: March 01, 2023 - February 29, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Nuclear Engineering - Applications of Radioisotopes
• Principal Investigator: Ernani Pinto Junior
• Grantee: Ernani Pinto Junior
• Host Institution: Centro de Energia Nuclear na Agricultura (CENA). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Piracicaba , SP, Brazil

Abstract

CENA/USP, Specialized Institute and Integration Body of the University of São Paulo, had, in December 2020, its own body of 32 Professors hired in RDIDP. With regard to professors in RDIDP, there are 9 Professors (27.2%), 12 Associate Professors (36.4%) and 12 PhD Professors (36.4%), working in three Scientific Divisions. Among the Associate Professors, seven are MS 5.3 Professors. These Professors demonstrate excellence in university activities, highlighting the training of qualified human resources, as well as a scientific production in renowned national and international journals, with a high impact index. The high scientific productivity of CENA Professors can also be proven by the high number of CNPq Productivity Scholarships: of the current 33 professors, 23 are scholarship holders (69.7% of the staff), 16 in category 1 (69.6 %), including 5 in category 1A. Other research performance indicators worth mentioning are the number of active CENA professors who are members of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, 4 (12.5% of the faculty). CENA, which in 2021 completed 55 years of its creation, became the largest Specialized Institute of the University of São Paulo, starting to be considered an academic center of international excellence in the development of research in the areas of agriculture and the environment, through nuclear techniques , its scope still applies to other fields of science, also acting in the areas of applied environmental and social sciences, presenting an important participation in the core activities of the University of São Paulo and counts, for the conduction of these activities, and the 33 Professors hired in RDIDP, are allocated in three Scientific Divisions, equivalent to Departments in Full Units, namely: Division of Tropical Ecosystems Functioning - DVECO, with 10 professors (3 Full Professors; 4 Associates and 3 Doctors) organized in 7 Laboratories, - DVTEC , with 09 professors (3 Full Professors; 3 Associates and 3 PhD) in 5 Laboratories and DVPROD, with 14 professors (3 Full Professors; 5 Associates and 6 Doctor tors) in 10 Laboratories. Although CENA is framed as a Specialized Institute, teaching activities (Undergraduate - ESALQ/USP courses and two CAPES Level 7 Graduate Programs), research (excellence) and extension, can perfectly qualify CENA as a Full Unit of Teaching, Research and Extension. Regarding undergraduate teaching, although CENA is not a Full Unit, from 2001 onwards, there has been a significant increase in the participation of CENA Professors who offer, in 2021, a total of 32 subjects (11 compulsory, 16 optional and 5 mandatory/optional) to 6 ESALQ/USP courses. CENA participated and participates in thematic networks with the development of ten (10) Thematic Projects (FAPESP - Resources of around R$ 21 million reais. $ 7,321,031. Research works that highlight the activities of CENA professors in 2021 are distributed in the areas of Agriculture and Biological Sciences (35%), Environmental Sciences (22%), Earth Sciences (9%), Chemistry (5 %) and Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology (5 %), in addition to other international journals indexed in important databases, which correspond to the objectives of the Scientific Divisions of CENA/USP (Figure 11). CENA presents 1120 indexed documents in the SCOPUS database in the last 6 years (2016-2021), making a total of 18,484 citations, establishing an average of 16.5 citations per indexed document in the year. In the WOS database, for the same period, CENA presents 797 indexed documents ( indian ce h 28) with 15,321 citations and an average of 19 citations per indexed document. It can also be noted that CENA receives a large number of Post-Doctoral Students each year, in 2021, there were 45 Post-Doctoral Students (39 in 2020), with ongoing projects. (AU)