By Bruno Cássio – LAIS/UFRN Communication Advisor

Being aware of global issues related to science is part of the mission of the Technological Innovation in Health Laboratory of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (LAIS/UFRN). In this sense, the Laboratory has sought to build new international partnerships and strengthen existing ones, as is the case of Technical Cooperation with the University of Coimbra, in force for some years. As part of the expansion of this agreement, on Tuesday (13), in one of the headquarters of the Portuguese university, a new work plan was signed for research in health segments and other areas of knowledge.

The Center for Biomedical Law, at Coimbra University’s Law School, is the academic unit with which LAIS/UFRN will start to develop scientific research in health law; bioethics of research involving human beings; integrity and responsible conduct of research; digital health; communication in health and lifelong learning. The director of the Portuguese center, professor André Pereira, talked about this union of interests: “I have already understood that LAIS is a very strong organization, with a lot of network, with a lot of capacity, I am very excited to develop these lines of research and make high level international publications”, he said.

According to the executive director of LAIS/UFRN, Ricardo Valentim, the work plan foresees the possibility of these studies being developed and shared with universities and institutions that make up the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), which for LAIS/UFRN “represents the opportunity to expand international cooperation and produce robust data to assist in the definition of public policies in the areas researched, not only in Brazil, but in these countries”.

Presentation of projects
In the same agenda, LAIS/UFRN researchers and the General Auditor of the Single Health System, Cláudio Costa, who is part of the cooperation mission, presented to the researchers from the Center for Informatics and Systems of Coimbra University (CISUC) some projects in the areas of digitalization of health auditing and verification of the impact of researches developed by the Laboratory in the improvement of public health services.

New challenges were launched, such as the possibility of developing joint studies for the prevention and identification of fraud in the application of public resources used in the sector. For Jorge Henriques, professor of the Department of Computer Engineering at the University of Coimbra, “any problem that has social and practical interest, we are willing to collaborate and LAIS always brings us concrete problems”, he stated while ratifying the importance of these collaborations.

According to Paulo Gil, professor and researcher at CISUC, “LAIS has something that is very important for us scientists, it has information and, precisely for this reason, it is an honor to participate in this collaboration”, he highlighted. As a result of this visit, the Portuguese researchers are expected to come to Brazil by the end of the year to participate in a scientific event in the area of health law and auditing.