Sociedade Brasileira para o Progresso da Ciência (Portuguese

Portuguese language

Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...

 for Brazilian Society for the Progress of Science) is a Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

ian scientific society created in 1948 by several prominent scientists, with the aim of promoting science

Science

Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...

, culture

Culture

Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...

 and education

Education

Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...

 in the country by means of publications, conferences and political actions on behalf of science's advancement and progress. It was formed in the same spirit of two venerable institutions in the Anglo-Saxon world, the British Association for the Advancement of Science

British Association for the Advancement of Science

frame|right|"The BA" logoThe British Association for the Advancement of Science or the British Science Association, formerly known as the BA, is a learned society with the object of promoting science, directing general attention to scientific matters, and facilitating interaction between...

 (founded 1831)and the American Association for the Advancement of Science

American Association for the Advancement of Science

The American Association for the Advancement of Science is an international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsibility, and supporting scientific education and science outreach for the...

 (AAAS, founded 1848).

The first president was Prof. Jorge Americano, and among the founders there were important scientific personalities of the country, such as Paulo Sawaya, José Reis

José Reis

José Reis was a noted Brazilian scientist, journalist, scientific leader and science writer....

, Maurício Rocha e Silva

Maurício Rocha e Silva

Maurício Oscar da Rocha e Silva was a Brazilian physician, biomedical scientist and pharmacologist...

, Gastão Rosenfeld

Gastão Rosenfeld

Gastão Rosenfeld , was a Brazilian physician and biomedical scientist, one of the co-discoverers of bradykinin, together with Maurício Rocha e Silva and Wilson Teixeira Beraldo, in 1949....

 and José Ribeiro do Vale, Otto Guilherme Bier, Henrique da Rocha Lima

Henrique da Rocha Lima

Henrique da Rocha Lima was a Brazilian physician, pathologist and infectologist. He discovered Rickettsia prowazekii, the pathogen of epidemic typhus. Rickettsia prowazekii was named after German zoologist Stanislaus von Prowazek.Henrique da Rocha Lima received his M.D. degree from the Medical...

, Alberto Carvalho da Silva and others.

The Society has individual members as well as other Brazilian scientific societies and associations which can become affiliate to SBPC. The current president is Dr. Ennio Candotti

Ennio Candotti

Ennio Candotti is a Brazilian physicist and scientific leader.He studied physics at the University of São Paulo, in São Paulo, from 1960 to 1964, and also at the University of Naples, in Naples, Italy...

, a physicist

Physicist

A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...

. Honour presidents are Aziz Ab'Saber

Aziz Ab'Saber

Aziz Nacib Ab'Sáber is an environmentalist and one of Brazil´s most respected scientists, honored with the highest awards of Brazilian science in geography, geology, ecology and archaeology...

, Crodowaldo Pavan

Crodowaldo Pavan

Crodowaldo Pavan was a Brazilian biologist and geneticist, and a scientific leader in Brazil.-Early life:Pavan was born to a family of second-generation immigrants from Italy in 1919, in the city of Campinas, São Paulo state, Brazil...

, José Goldemberg

José Goldemberg

José Goldemberg , a Brazilian physicist, university educator, scientific leader and research scientist, is a leading expert on energy end environment issues....

, José Leite Lopes

José Leite Lopes

José Leite Lopes , noted Brazilian theoretical physicist in the field of quantum field theory and particle physics.-Life:...

, Oscar Sala

Oscar Sala

Oscar Sala , Italian-Brazilian nuclear physicist and important scientific leader, Emeritus Professor of the Institute of Physics, University of São Paulo....

, Ricardo de Carvalho Ferreira, Sérgio Henrique Ferreira

Sérgio Henrique Ferreira

Sérgio Henrique Ferreira , Brazil, Brazilian physician and pharmacologist, noted for his discovery of Bradykinin potentiating factor, which led to better anti-hypertension drugs.Ferreira received his M.D...

 and Warwick Estevam Kerr

Warwick Estevam Kerr

Warwick Estevam Kerr is a Brazilian agricultural engineer, geneticist, entomologist, professor and scientific leader, notable for his discoveries in the genetics and sex determination of bees. The Africanized bee in the western hemisphere is directly descended from 26 Tanzanian queen bees Warwick...

.

SBPC's first flagship publication was "Ciência e Cultura

Ciência e Cultura

Ciência e Cultura is a science magazine published by the Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science .- History :...

" (Science and Culture), started in 1951 under the editorship of Dr. José Reis

José Reis

José Reis was a noted Brazilian scientist, journalist, scientific leader and science writer....

, a respected biomedical scientist and the dean of popularization of science in Brazil (there is a National Award conceded by the National Council for Research and Technological Development to the best science writers and projects on public understanding of science

Public understanding of science

Public understanding of science may refer to:* Public Understanding of Science , an academic journal* Public awareness of science...

 named after him). The journal's ambition was to be like Science Magazine

Science Magazine

Science Magazine was a half-hour television show produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation from 1975 to 1979.The show was hosted by geneticist David Suzuki, who previously hosted the daytime youth programme Suzuki On Science...

, AAAS' scientific publication.

The greatest endeavour of SBPC has been the organization of yearly scientific conferences at national and regional level, since its year of birth, and without interruption. In the 1970s, during the oppression of civil liberties by the military regime, these conferences became an important public forum for discussion of issues on political freedom, since they were more or less left alone by the military repression apparatus, which acted hugely and mercilessly against mass media communication, student, workers and political organizations. The first conference was held in Campinas

Campinas

Campinas is a city and municipality located in the coastal interior of the state of São Paulo, Brazil. is the administrative center of the meso-region of the same name, with 3,783,597 inhabitants as of the 2010 Census, consisting of 49 cities....

, São Paulo

São Paulo (state)

São Paulo is a state in Brazil. It is the major industrial and economic powerhouse of the Brazilian economy. Named after Saint Paul, São Paulo has the largest population, industrial complex, and economic production in the country. It is the richest state in Brazil...

, in 1949 and had 104 participants. In the next meetings, in Curitiba

Curitiba

Curitiba is the capital of the Brazilian state of Paraná. It is the largest city with the biggest economy of both Paraná and southern Brazil. The population of Curitiba numbers approximately 1.75 million people and the latest GDP figures for the city surpass US$61 billion according to...

 (1950) and Belo Horizonte

Belo Horizonte

Belo Horizonte is the capital of and largest city in the state of Minas Gerais, located in the southeastern region of Brazil. It is the third largest metropolitan area in the country...

 (1951), increasing participation and enthusiasm followed, with the Brazilian Academy of Sciences first involvement, as well as of other scientific societies.

Another significant publications are "Jornal da Ciência" (Science Newspaper), a daily news email service, site and printed publication; and "ComCiência", an on-line scientific journalism review, edited by the Laboratory of Advanced Studies of Journalism (Labjor) of the State University of Campinas.

SBPC has spawned a number of initiatives with the objective of popularizing science and serving science education

Science education

Science education is the field concerned with sharing science content and process with individuals not traditionally considered part of the scientific community. The target individuals may be children, college students, or adults within the general public. The field of science education comprises...

. One of them is the Instituto Ciência Hoje (Science Today Institute), a not-for-profit non-governmental organization of public interest. ICH publishes "Ciência Hoje" Magazine since 1982, "Ciência Hoje das Crianças" (Children's Science Today) since 1986, and a series of complementary didactic books for school

School

A school is an institution designed for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is commonly compulsory. In these systems, students progress through a series of schools...

s titled "Ciência Hoje na Escola" (Science Today at the School) since 1996. Since 1997, the Institute also maintains an Internet site, "Ciência Hoje On-line".

External links

• SBPC Home Page. Official site.
• Ciência e Cultura. Official scientific journal.
• Jornal da Ciência. Daily science news bulletin.
• Com Ciência. On-line scientific journalism review.
• Ciência Hoje, a magazine with articles, current issues and news on science (very much like Scientific American
  Scientific American
  Scientific American is a popular science magazine. It is notable for its long history of presenting science monthly to an educated but not necessarily scientific public, through its careful attention to the clarity of its text as well as the quality of its specially commissioned color graphics...
  
  )
• Ciência Hoje On-Line. A Web site devoted to the popularization of science.
• Ciência Hoje para Crianças. a magazine with science subjects for school-age children and adolescents.