Gustavo, you were a MSCA Grantee. Could you tell us a little bit about the research you conducted with this grant and how this has influenced your career
During the PREMAID project I was the main person in charge of developing a condition monitoring technique for metallised film polypropylene capacitors within traction drives (such as the high-speed train, “TGV”). At that time, I was an expert on semiconductor devices and through the project I was able to achieve new expertise regarding power electronics converters (DC-DC, AC-DC and DC-AC converters) and capacitors. This grant changed my life: Thanks to the project, I acquired a deep knowledge on semiconductors, power converters and capacitors, which allowed me to enter the Renewable Energies world with a broad knowledge of all the different system-parts, a field of research which I am still working on nowadays, developing technologies within a private company which I founded in my home town (since 2012).
How in particular has this experience been affecting your career in the private sector?
This experience completely changed my career in the private sector: Through my experience at Alstom Transport and throughout the project itself and thanks to the academy partners of 4 different countries, it was possible for me to understand how some concepts which had already been developed within universities could be easily adapted to the industrial world in a very profitable way. The time I spent at Alstom allowed me to understand how important and cost-effective developing industry-academy partnerships are. Since that time I have been following this pattern, implementing it even presently in my own company (we have already been engaging in collaboration with many Brazilian and foreign universities, such as ENSIAME France and Cambridge University).
In your opinion, what could be done to attract foreign know-how to Brazil?
The best way would be to propose challenging research projects responding to an actual demand in the market, and with a potential for becoming real products and solutions. Previous know-how can be applied and effective results can be achieved in a very fast way. Current research needs in fields such as water, waste and energy have strong potential and may attract many foreign researchers in applying their knowledge and skills in a real but different world. Combined with Brazilian researchers’ know-how, smart solutions and new products can be developed very speedily (this is the way we have been working in my own company and results have been excellent).
In your experience, what could be done to establish further bridges between research and the private sector in Brazil?
In my opinion, the private sector should not treat our PhD researchers as future “professors” anymore. In fact, it is exactly the opposite: Research within private companies should be a key focus area for the success of Brazilian technology companies.
I believe that it is necessary for government programmes to finance more researchers within private companies. By this I mean increasing scholarships for this sort of activity, and making them more attractive, for example by including additional advantages, besides the financial value itself, and for periods longer than 4 years (which consequently would definitely allow companies to hire the researchers involved). Furthermore, collaborations with European Projects must be exploited further by bringing researchers from European research centres to Brazilian companies, and sending Brazilian researchers who are already working in private companies to European companies or universities (funded by EC/MSCA). This could speed up the development and achievement of specific goals. I had this experience in different ways and moments of my career and it is really useful and effective.
Gustavo Malagoli Buiatti was born in Uberlândia, Brazil, in 1976. He received a B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from the Federal University of Uberlândia, Uberlândia, in 2002 and a Ph.D. from the Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy, in 2006. In 2006, he worked at International Rectifier, Borgaro, Italy. From 2006 to 2008, he worked at Alstom Transport, Séméac, France, through a ToK-IAP EC FP6 project - PREMAID project - as a post-doc researcher (MSCA fellow). He worked at the Mitsubishi Electric Research Centre Europe, Rennes, France, as a Researcher and Team Leader on Sustainable Energy Systems, focusing primarily on Grid-connected Photovoltaic Systems (2008-2011). Since 2012, he has been working at ALSOL Renewable Energies (formerly Malagoni Engineering), Uberlândia, Brazil, developing renewable energy solutions for the Brazilian market. His research interests are the modelling of power semiconductor devices, the design of dc/dc and dc/ac power converters, designing MPPT techniques, condition monitoring of passive components used in power applications and condition monitoring of PV plants. An author of several technical papers and patents all over the world, he was listed in 32nd edition of “Who is who in the world” (2015).