Embrapa will have a new president coming soon. To replace Mauricio Lopes, the board of the company elected Sebastião Barbosa, a retired researcher at the Embrapa Cotton Unit, to take charge of the general unit. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, the tenure is expected to take place on October 10.
The change does not include the three executive directors, who took office in July 2017 and remain, since they have a two-year term and are still renewable. The succession should not alter Embrapa’s structural and functional review process, initiated in 2015, since it is conducted by the entire Executive Board, not just by the president.
Among the structural review proposals submitted by the task force is the replacement of the name of national research centers by innovation centers for all 42 Embrapa units in Brazil. This would be an initial sign of the Company’s focus on a possible new configuration, in which the surveys should indicate, from the project’s design, the innovation and the consequent impacts that will generate for the field.
This text was translated by machine from Brazilian Portuguese.