The proposed project aimed at enhancing international collaborations on Future Internet research and development. Over the last few years, Future Internet research has gathered significant momentum. Separate programs have already been set up in different countries; there is no doubt that cross-border collaboration and integration is necessary. Our project has helped establish a solid collaboration between US and Brazil.

More specific benefits including: (1) This project served as a foothold for future larger scale collaborations between US and Brazil. While projects like GENI are seeking international involvement, Brazil is setting up the programs for its own Future Internet research agenda. Our project was used as a forerunner for a joint research program between these two countries. We have already seen communications between the funding agencies of the two countries. (2) This project established concrete collaborations between researchers from the US and Brazil by having them working closely on innovative and transformative research projects, through faculty and student visits and face-to-face meetings at workshops. The participants of the workshops have developed extensive collaborations. (3) SwitchOn generated collaborative opportunities between the two countries. The project helped establish a long-term collaborative relationship between US and Brazil faculty and students as a result of experience participating in this project. The joint team research projects created the necessary conditions for future large-scale collaborations. Our project also served as a collaborative model to encourage further participation and collaboration between US and Brazil as well as with other countries.

The result of the two workshops includes recommendations, which are derived from the speaker presentations, breakouts summaries, and personal communications.

Intellectual Merit: In order to achieve its goal of stimulating research participation, coordinating collaborative efforts, and exploring future research opportunities between the US and Brazil, the SwitchOn project planned three stages: 1) an initial stage for exploring and identifying existing and potential research collaboration opportunities, 2) mid-stage expansion of joint research teams conducting high-impact Future Interest research, and 3) a final stage for deepening collaborations and ensuring project outcomes from the joint US-Brazil research teams. The latter was particularly important for helping align future large-scale collaborative research programs between the two countries. The project’s specific activities included: 1) two focused workshops, bringing together collaborative researchers conducting high-impact Future Internet research in the US and Brazil, and 2) international research experiences, which allowed US researchers to have short-term visits to their Brazilian partners in order to strengthen their research collaboration. Results from the joint research teams was gathered and synthesized as concrete evidence and practical guidelines for future large-scale research collaborations between US and Brazil. As such, these efforts were sustained and extended through other projects into a broad-scale international collaboration initiative for Future Internet research.

Broader Impacts: By having graduate students, early career faculty, and research scientists working closely on innovative and transformative research projects with Brazilian counterparts through short-term visits and face-to-face meetings at workshops the SwitchOn project enhanced international collaborations on Future Internet research and development between US and Brazil. This project provided concrete research collaboration prospects for researchers from US and Brazil along with the opportunity for two US and three Brazilian graduate students to participate in international workshops. The SwitchON project served as the foothold for future large-scale collaborations between US and Brazil for transformative collaborative Future Internet research. SwitchOn poised to succeed in establishing a long-term collaborative relationship between US and Brazilian faculty and students in Future Internet research, based on the experience of the PI and Co-PIs and the value to be gained from this project. The joint team research projects served as a model of collaboration in other related cyberinfrastructure enabled science domains and created the necessary condition for future endeavors to encourage further participation and collaboration between US and Brazil, as well as with other countries.

Last Modified: 04/12/2018
Modified by: Heidi Morgan