Young Scientists Award announces winners, highlights projects to combat climate change | Brazil

The 2025 edition celebrated research aimed at reducing environmental impacts, dealing with extreme events and developing adaptation strategies. The Prize was created by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) in partnership with the Roberto Marinho Foundation, and enjoys major sponsorship from Shell and media support from Editora Globo and Canal Futura.

First place in each category was taken by Elisangela Aparecida dos Santos (MA and PhD), Manuel da Costa Pereira (Higher Education), and Raúl Víctor Magalhães Sousa (Secondary School). The Institutional Merit and Scientific Merit categories were also awarded.

Prizes include laptops, CNPq grants, and amounts ranging from R$12,000 to R$40,000. In total, 919 works were registered – 352 in the master’s and doctoral categories, 211 in higher education and 356 in secondary education.

The winning work from the high school combined tradition and technology by creating a system that combined the folk wisdom of rain prophets from the semi-arid region of Ceara with artificial intelligence tools. The project, developed by 16-year-old student Raul Victor Magalhaes Souza, achieved 94.5% accuracy, five times higher than traditional climate monitoring systems.

Under the guidance of Professor Hillison Lucas Bezerra Braz, Raúl created the “AI for Rain Prophets” system, based on machine learning and designed with an interface in Streamlit, an open source Python library. The tool was fed with data provided by six prophets – people who notice signs of nature to predict rain and other weather events – from five municipalities in Vale do Jaguaribe, and organized into ten criteria distributed between weather phenomena, plant factors, and animal behaviour.

— Learning more about Northeastern culture, and those who observe signs of nature to predict the biometric system, created the inspiration to develop this work that is important to me not only for its scientific meaning, but also for its symbolic and emotional value. “It was great to meet the rain prophets in my area and work with them in developing the project,” Raul said.

The system was also trained using meteorological records from the Cearense Foundation for Meteorology and Water Resources (Funceme) and the National Institute of Meteorology (Inmet), referring to the historical series from 1981 to 2024. Raúl, a student at Deputado Joaquim de Figueiredo Correia High School, intends to expand the database and geographical scope of the project.

In the Higher Education category, the project “Castanheiro Solar Group: Improving an Innovative Alternative to Improve the Quality of Life of Extraction Workers” won. This research was developed by Manuel da Costa Pereira, 23 years old, a graduate of forest engineering from the Federal Institute of Amapa, who created a portable solar energy system, made of recyclable materials and adapted to the needs of chestnut trees in the Amazon forests.

The kit, presented at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30), held this month in Belém, reduces reliance on diesel engines and facilitates movement in the jungle, by reducing the weight of the equipment from 1,000 liters to 50 litres. The student conducted field research from 2022 onwards and joined the Center for Ecological and Management Studies in the Amazon.

– I am from Laranjal do Jarry, a city closely linked to chestnut extraction, in Amapa state, and since I was young I have seen the importance of forests for these workers and how difficult it is to spend days or weeks without electricity or rely on fossil fuels, such as diesel oil, which pollute the environment – said Manuel.

The winner of the master’s and doctoral degrees was 32-year-old economist Elisangela Aparecida dos Santos, author of the paper “Climate vulnerability and resilience in Brazil: a regional view of adaptive action.” It has developed a methodology based on three components – vulnerability, resilience and adaptive capacity – consisting of 30 environmental, social, economic and demographic indicators.

The research identified factors that increase the resilience of Brazilian municipalities to extreme events, such as access to drinking water, agroecological practices, income diversification, and the presence of women in municipal administration. The work used official rules such as the 2017 Agricultural Census, the Atlas of Brazil, the Human Development Index (HDI) – which measures a country’s progress in health, education and income – and the Gini Index, which deals with inequality in income distribution.

– What caught our attention most is that these most resilient municipalities are located in the northeastern region of Brazil, which shows that even in areas strongly affected by climate change, there are examples of effective adaptation – said Elizangela.

The scientific merit was awarded to Professor Ana Paula Melo of the Federal University of Santa Catarina. In terms of institutional merit, awards were given to the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (higher education) and the Professor Paulo Freire State Technical School of Pernambuco (high school).

Secretary General of the Roberto Marinho Foundation, João Alegría, highlighted the importance of public recognition of the winners of the 31st edition of the Young Scientists Prize. According to him, the award-winning works, from different educational levels – master’s, doctoral, university and high school – share a valuable trait: the ability to find solutions based on strict adherence to the scientific method, but able to establish dialogue and expression with regions and traditional knowledge, not just academic knowledge.

– This can only happen in Brazil. There is a Brazilian way of doing science, which reflects the characteristics of our identity and culture, and which is rooted in the nature of the work developed by universities and research agencies over the years, which have striven to make environments more diverse and, therefore, more relevant and innovative in the production of knowledge. We are faced with projects, research and solutions that do this in a way that is very interesting and of importance and value to all citizens of the country.

The alternate president of CNPq, Olival Freire, stressed the importance of awards to uncover talent and motivate young researchers,

– In the case of science, we need institutions, schools, salaries, scholarships and money for development, but we also need good prizes. Because awards reveal talent and move people. It is not a fierce competition of one party against the other, but it contributes to appreciating and stimulating the work of those who devote their efforts to research – he said, highlighting the historical status of the CNPq and the Roberto Marinho Foundation.

— The award you receive today bears the brand of very prestigious institutions, such as the CNPq, created almost 75 years ago, and the Roberto Marinho Foundation, which are inseparable from the Globo brand. This status is transferred to the award, providing quality and recognition to the winners.

Participating in the ceremony, Monique Gonçalves, from Shell Brazil, highlighted the importance of research, knowledge production and response to climate change:

– This is a pillar that is completely linked to our commitment to seeking more sustainable solutions for our society.

In total, ten young researchers and two institutions were honored:

• 1st place – Elisangela Aparecida dos Santos (UFVJM – MG)
• 2nd place – Luiz Fernando Icer (Maringa State University – Public Relations)
• 3rd place – Tuani Aparecida da Silva Santa Rosa Rodriguez (UFRJ)

• 1st place – Manuel da Costa Pereira (Federal Institute of Amapa)
• 2nd place – Isaac Diogenes Bezerra (Federal Institute of Ceará)
• 3rd place – Ana Julia Toledo Hoskin (Petropolis School of Medicine – RJ)