Research Topics

Through research projects on stem cell engineering for regenerative medicine, the MIT Portugal Program addresses the development of novel therapies for an aging society, and their clinical implementation.

The development of sustainable energy and transportation systems addresses the global challenge of providing critical services to increasingly urban populations under significant resource constraints. Through sustainable energy and transportation systems research projects, the MIT Portugal Program aims to enhance the sustainability of social activity as well as the natural and built environments. We focus on the challenges of regional sustainability, and are developing new tools, such as urban metabolism, to evaluate and design complex local systems.

MIT Portugal Program research on materials and design-inspired products targets products and associated services resulting from the integration of science and technology (including advanced modeling tools) into competitive solutions for niche markets in the mobility industries (e.g., automotive and aeronautics) and the health sector (medical devices).

About Our Research

Materials and Design Inspired Products (MDIP) is the primary targeted application area (TAA) of the Engineering Design and Advanced Manufacturing (EDAM) scientific domain.

The mission statement of the EDAM scientific domain is the guiding principle behind its efforts: "To develop a new paradigm in Europe for engineering research and education based on an application-driven approach and to promote knowledge-based manufacturing and competitive product development."

This strategy is based on an engineering systems approach, integrating engineering, management, design, and manufacturing. The new education and research program combines lectures and case studies, internships in industrial technological firms and international research laboratories, and applied research to achieve and disseminate sound knowledge in the relevant areas of the program.

Research projects within MDIP provide fundamental knowledge related to engineering design and advanced manufacturing in industries fundamental to Portugal's future. The research strategy has been to develop an educationally-coupled research program, requiring that the research have strong industry interaction with firms having experience in product development, design and other aspects of R&D. Leaders for Technical Industries (LTI) doctoral students are at the core of all the research activities because their research is the pillar of their theses. They are the hubs of research projects that include industrial partners, Portuguese faculty, MIT faculty (some of whom are actively involved in research and others who are in advisory capacities on doctoral committees), and MIT students.

The MIT-Portugal Program has its intellectual foundations in engineering systems and systems thinking. Engineering systems is an emerging field that integrates engineering, management and social sciences to achieve the best possible understanding, design, and implementation of the highly complex, technology-based systems on which society is increasingly dependent. Further, Engineering Systems account for multiple stakeholder perspectives, by exploring flexibility, robustness, scalability, safety, security, durability, sustainability, reliability, quality, recyclability, and maintainability – the "ilities" often left out of traditional analysis, but critical to developing lasting solutions.

Research within fundamentals of Engineering Systems is grouped into the following four clusters of methodologies: