IIEB - Instituto Internacional de Educação do Brasil

The BECA Program provides assistance to secondary-level and undergraduate students, grants for Master’s degrees and doctorates and incentives for professional development. Up to the present time, IEB has conferred 186 grants across these modalities. So far, four calls for applications have been launched, two in 2005 and two in 2006.

BECA is affiliated with the Moore Foundation’s Andes-Amazon Initiative, which looks to promote the large-scale conservation of ecological processes through a three-prong approach: the generation of relevant scientific knowledge directly applicable in the conservation of biodiversity; the (re)defining of economic tools and environmental policies, and; the creation and management of protected areas (in the broad sense of the term).

Governance of the BECA process

One of the principles dearest to the BECA Program is its transparency, a characteristic that pervades the program from the receipt of applications through to the selection process. Today, BECA draws upon the expertise of 180 assessors spread throughout universities, government agencies and non-governmental organizations. These professionals evaluate the applications and their assessments form the basis of the considerations of the selection committee, composed of a group of these same assessors. The process is not only transparent, but has also proved extremely efficient in awarding grants to the best candidates.