Professor Glaucius Oliva, head of the Science without Borders initiative, speaks about his time as a PhD student in the crystallography department at Birkbeck in the 1980s and his future plans for the ambitious Science without Borders programme. Science without Borders is an initiative of the Brazilian government which aims to send 100,000 undergraduate and postgraduate Brazilian students to study at top universities around the world. Dr Jose Lopes, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of São Paulo, shares his experiences of studying at Birkbeck under the Science without Borders initiative.