The current Research Project has a defined staff, budget, activities and timeline, but the Center should not remain limited to this single project. Other projects, apparently not directly linked to the ongoing project, may converge to global objectives, or may even constitute "partial solutions" to be incorporated more rapidly by the industry into their commercial flex-fuel engines. This generic and broad concept is what distinguishes the proposed Center from a Thematic Project of FAPESP.
The annual budget provided by the FAPESP/PSA partnership for the creation of the Engineering Research Center is intended for the Project defined and to maintain this Center until its maturity, when it must "walk with its own feet". As the ERC “Urbano Ernesto Stumpf" was designed to nucleate research in biofuels end-use in the State of São Paulo, it is necessary to seek new projects, incorporate other companies, other research groups and other sources of funding beyond the FAPESP / PSA budget. The Center must have an open philosophy and provide research infrastructure and qualified personnel capable of attracting other automakers or "systemists" interested in biofuel engine research. The presence of PSA cannot be seen as a barrier to other companies; on the contrary, the ERC must present conditions that motivate other initiatives and projects, to be effectively recognized as a plural research center, in addition to establishing contacts and collaboration with other Brazilian and international institutions working in the field of internal combustion engines.
On the other hand, public institutions have legal and bureaucratic procedures that need to be respected. As the research to be carried out in the Center is not merely a service to be made to companies, there is a need to formalize a Cooperation Agreement, where aspects of intellectual property and confidentiality must be agreed between the parties. In addition to the technical and scientific details on the scope of each new Project, there is a legal and bureaucratic stage to be fulfilled.
In order to streamline such legal procedures, the Center intends to conduct a round of negotiations for new projects with new partners during 2017, defining the new projects until November 2017. The legal procedures to formalize Cooperation Agreements would then be forwarded by together, reducing the processing time.
