Standardization News

A Leading Academic Consortia Marks 60th Anniversary

John Pace, vice president, publications and marketing, ASTM, signs ASTM's ongoing partnership agreement with CAPES. From left to right: Pace; Professor Elenara Chaves Edler de Almeida, general coordinator, Portal de Periódicos of CAPES; Professor Jorge Almeida Guimarães, Ph.D., president, CAPES; Professor Emídio de Oliveira Filho, Ph.D., director of programs and educational resources, CAPES.

On Nov. 11, 2011, ASTM International participated in the 60th anniversary celebration of CAPES (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior, or Brazilian Agency for Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education) in Brasilia, Brazil. CAPES, part of the Brazilian Ministry of Education, is one of the leading academic consortia in the world. Its mission is coordinating and expanding academic programs, both undergraduate and graduate, in more than 350 technical and scientific colleges and universities throughout Brazil.

CAPES provides additional support for these schools through numerous resources and scholarships, and its evaluation programs, which continuously seek to standardize and improve its educational programs. Through the work of CAPES and its leaders, Brazil has advanced academically during the past two decades to be recognized as 13th in the world in published scientific works.

The ceremony featured presentations by CAPES president, Jorge Almeida Guimarães, Ph.D., and CAPES director of programs and educational resources, Emídio Cantídio de Oliveira Filho, Ph.D., and was attended by a number of other senior CAPES staff and official representatives of the Brazilian education ministry as well as the publishers that provide CAPES with products and services in support of their many programs. Representing ASTM International at the ceremony was John Pace, ASTM vice president of publications and marketing.

CAPES and ASTM International began its partnership four years ago, when the ASTM Standards and Engineering Digital Library and the complete collection of ASTM International standards were made available to the entire Brazilian academic community through the CAPES-sponsored Portal de Periódicos. The CAPES portal system today is recognized worldwide as one of the leading and most comprehensive online collections of journals and technical information; it contains products from more than 65 publishers around the world.

Following the formal ceremony, which also marked the celebration of the portal's 11th year, there was a signing ceremony and reception for the publishers and their ongoing partnership agreements with CAPES. Overseeing coordination of this part of the program was Elenara Chaves Edler de Almeida, general coordinator of the Portal de Periódicos of CAPES.