Brazil’s popular Science without Borders scholarship programme finds itself on shaky ground owing to looming spending cuts in education. Following the economic slowdown and the strain of the strong US dollar, the Brazilian government has been forced to suspend the programme for 2016. Brazil’s flagship study abroad initiative was created in 2011 to send 101 000 researchers and university students in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) to universities in partner countries. The programme was expected to provide 100 000 more scholarships for Brazilian students who want to study abroad in its second phase running from 2015 to 2018 (see As reported in Folha de São Paulo