MIT Portugal Details New Research Strategy at 1st Annual Conference

Monday, 13 July 2009

At "Engineering for Better Jobs" Event, Industry Leaders Show Support for Program’s Market-Oriented Focus

Before an audience of several hundred that included leaders of Portugal’s scientific community as well as industry and research executives, the MIT Portugal Program’s 1st Annual Conference on July 7, 2009, “Engineering for Better Jobs,” provided a twofold opportunity for MIT Portugal: to describe the program’s achievements to date, and discuss the three areas in which the program has decided to focus its efforts going forward – sustainable energy and transportation systems, stem cell engineering for regenerative medicine, and materials and design-inspired products.

The conference, which was held at the Centro Cultural de Belém in Lisbon, also provided a forum for a number of CEOs from companies affiliated with MIT Portugal to discuss their collaborations with the program. In so doing, they expressed strong support for the program’s new strategic focus and applauded MIT Portugal’s efforts to create an ‘entrepreneurship ecosystem’ in Portugal aimed at bringing groundbreaking research to market and spurring economic development.

Vianney Valès, CEO of SCG Energia

According to one of these business leaders, Luís Filipe Pereira of EFACEC, the Portuguese electrical and electromechanical systems company, “In the past year we had 1.2 billion euros in orders. In 2006 we had 400 million, so we have tripled in that time. This is only possible with people and know-how. MIT Portugal helps us at this level.” Other top executives who spoke at the conference included Vianney Valès (SGC Energia), António Mexia (EDP), Carlos Martins (Martifer), Manuel Ferreira de Oliveira (Galp), Alfredo Vicente Pereira (RAVE) António Vidigal (EDP Inovação), Manuel Nunes (Siemens Portugal) and Tiago Oliveira (Portucel).

In comments to some of the numerous news outlets that covered the 1st Annual Conference, Manuel Heitor, Portugal’s Secretary of State for Science, Technology and Higher Education, also praised MIT Portugal. “It has exceeded all our expectations,” he said, adding that “conditions are now in place for renewal” of the program. In addition, Secretary Heitor noted that, because of the MIT Portugal Program, “Engineering schools in Portugal now know what Engineering Systems is. Also, for the first time, students can register at one school, take classes at others, do a lab rotation at still another university, and do research at MIT.”

Panels Discuss New Strategic Focus

The conference – which was co-chaired by Prof. António Cunha, President of the School of Engineering at the University of Minho and co-lead of MIT Portugal’s materials and design-inspired group, and Prof. Daniel Roos, Director of MIT Portugal at MIT – also featured videotaped remarks from José Mariano Gago, Portugal’s Minister for Science, Technology and Higher Education, and comments from João Sentieiro, President of the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT); Luis Magalhães, President of UMIC, the Knowledge Society Agency; and Prof. Paulo Ferrão, Director of MIT Portugal in Portugal.

After welcoming remarks from Carla Pepe, a Leaders for Technical Industries PhD student, and Esmerelda Dourado, CEO of SAG Gest, the event focused in on the areas of research in which MIT Portugal faculty and students, in conjunction with the program’s industry partners, will concentrate on in the coming years. The topics were: “Sustainable Energy and Transportation Systems (including the Green Islands project)”; “Uncertainty and Dynamics in Engineering Problems: Portuguese Cases”; “Stem Cell Engineering for Regenerative Medicine: Novel Therapies”; and “Materials and Design-Inspired Products: Products for the New Mobility Industry.”

Keynote: The Future of Engineering

The keynote address, on “The Future of Engineering,” was delivered by Steven Eppinger, General Motors Leaders for Manufacturing Professor of Management Science at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Prof. Eppinger pointed to three areas in which the engineering profession is undergoing substantial change. The first is engineering processes, which he said are now entirely digital and are becoming more globally distributed through outsourcing and offshoring business models. The second is engineering organizations, which, he noted, are hiring younger engineers who work and think differently from their predecessors, forcing the profession to employ technical talent in more open and collaborative ways. Lastly, Prof. Eppinger discussed the tendency for engineering culture to change slowly in established companies, and the fact that many such companies now find themselves struggling to adapt to rapid changes involving methods and personnel.

140 Posters Demonstrate Range of Program Research

One of the conference poster displays

One of the conference poster diplays

The 1st Annual Conference also featured an informal luncheon discussion with the Deans of Engineering from the University of Minho, FEUP, FCT-UNL, FCT-UC, and FC-UL, as well as two large-scale poster displays. One display featured 30 posters by Principal Investigators for all of the MIT Portugal research projects funded by the recent open call conducted by Portugal’s Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), as well as many of the program’s original research projects; the other included posters from 110 MIT Portugal doctoral students. Together, these displays demonstrated the breadth of MIT Portugal research. The award for Best Poster in the doctoral student category was Daniel Livengood of MIT’s Engineering Systems Division and the Sustainable Energy Systems group (“The Energy Box: Locally Automated Control of Residential Energy Use”).

(Read more about the poster displays and the Best Poster competition, including the other award recipients, and review book of poster abstracts.)

For a full list of speakers and topics, see the conference program:

icon MIT Portugal 1st Annual Conference Program