[Acácio Moraes]

Recently I found myself in a challenging situation

I'm from Brazil, and last week was announced a call for schorlaships abroad, including Sandwich PhD or Doctoral Stay.
I'm currently doing a PhD here. I work with phytochemistry and I think working with a experienced research group could help me with the polar extracts studies, that my group has little experience.

However, I've talked with my supervisors and they have none network with researchers abroad.
I don't want to lose this opportunity, mostly because it is a unique opportunity and one of the last in the actual government, which is actually cutting science foundings.

Said that, do you have any experience about getting in contact with researchers from abroad? And about searching for research groups and universities to study out of your country? Any tips could help, because I'm kind of lost here. My supervisor said he can't help, but he encouraged me to try.

Thank you all for any help you can give me 

[jeffmoonchop]

Use linkedin. people in academia dont use it as much as industry, but there will still be people using it. Search for the company/university you want to go to and you can see who works for that company. Then start sending connection requests with notes. This will be useful to gain contacts for when you want to loo for a job.

[Lisajohny543]

Yeah, I also suggest you use LinkedIn for this purpose, you will get much info from there.

[wildfyr]

Compile a list of the best 30 or so universities in the world in your field, then go to the group websites and dig for ones your interested in. Then I suggest just firing some emails cold to the supervisor. You might get a bite, or at least a referral.