It is great news that UK-Brazil collaboration is a rapidly growing “special relationship” (News, 3 October). THE’s coverage reported on factors such as funding and citations, but there is another important feature of transatlantic collaborations.
Lifelong friendships (and sometimes romance) can develop from “joint projects”. Academic life is not just about economic benefits or research excellence framework status: strictly speaking, it can also create a special kind of samba.
Woody Caan
Practitioner member of the Academy of Social Sciences
Duxford
Cambridgeshire