Full-time professors at public universities in Brazil will now be allowed to carry out research in the private sector—and get paid for it, without having to drop their academic jobs. The change is the result of a new law, signed yesterday by President Dilma Rousseff, designed to bring science and industry closer together.

The law authorizes universities and public research institutions to collaborate more freely with companies, including a mechanism for giving companies access to public research facilities. The changes are meant to put Brazil “on a new path to innovation,” says biologist Helena Nader, head of the Brazilian Society for the Progress of Science here, who helped draft the legislation.

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