Brazil in Scientific American

The current issue of Scientific American (February 2008) has several articles that deal with Brazil. "Building a Future on Science" by Christine Soares includes this statement:

The heart of Nicolelis’s vision is a string of “science cities” built across Brazil’s poorest regions, each centered on a world-class research institute specializing in a different area of science or technology. A web of education and social programs would intimately involve surrounding communities with each institution while improving local infrastructure and quality of life. And the presence of these knowledge-based oases would spark a Silicon Valley–style clustering of commercial scientific enterprise around them, jump-starting regional development.

The article also deals with other emerging national science sysgtems:

In 2006 China declared its plan to construct 30 new science cities and to raise its annual research
spending to more than $100 billion by 2020. At that point, the government expects 60 percent of the country’s economic growth to be based on science and technology. India, where a small number of elite universities have become hubs for technology clusters, as in Bangalore, is also betting on a continued tech boom. Although their approaches differ, what many of these nations
have in common is an overt goal of luring a diaspora of scientists trained in the West to bring their expertise back home.