The purpose of the UT Austin Portugal Program is to promote new frontiers of knowledge in emerging themes worldwide, through the advancement of high-level education, research, and commercialization activities.
The UT Austin Portugal Program is a partnership program in Science and Technology between the Portuguese Foundation of Science and Technology (FCT) and the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin), supported by the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Higher Education in close collaboration with the Council of Rectors of the Portuguese Universities (CRUP).
The long-standing transatlantic partners have thrived on the creation of a genuinely collaborative ecosystem that brought together universities, research performing institutions and laboratories, technology transfer offices and companies in Portugal with Austin’s counterparts. Launched in 2007 as part of a strategy to promote Portuguese scientific institutions at an international level, the Program has been structured around areas of research and education, designated as Collaboratory for Emerging Technologies (CoLab), and entrepreneurial projects and new technology-based business initiatives, known as the University-Technology-Enterprise Network (UTEN).
After a decade of setting up joint projects and building unique scientific, technology transfer and entrepreneurship capabilities, the transatlantic partnership moved into a new phase in 2018 towards 2030, determined to ensure its actions would go on shaping research agendas and delivering transformative results.
The UT Austin Portugal Program is no longer in its infancy; it has hit a decade of existence, learned from previous experiences and evolved from them. This new stage of maturity represents an increased capability to devise and implement new collaborative arrangements, amplify support to activities from the lab to the market and embrace new areas of knowledge to have a real impact on the ground.
Mission
To promote and enable the engagement of Portuguese scientists and companies with the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Texas System at large in multidisciplinary research, technology transfer and commercialization activities.
Vision
To contribute to a knowledge-based society and foster science and innovation-based companies, enabling Portugal to better face the challenges of the future.
Knowledge Areas
After a decade of a structured UT Austin Portugal joint venture, it was time to deepen this partnership but in a totally innovative way in order to develop a sound and scientifically relevant research-based agenda at the international level, while contributing towards reinforcing Portugal’s S&T capabilities in applications domains where the country is capable of becoming a key science-based knowledge and innovation provider in the international landscape.
For this new funding cycle, the Program elected five key areas of knowledge to deliver real impact on the ground and in the years to come. Some of these areas are new ventures (Space-Earth Interactions and Medical Physics) while others were already covered in the previous editions of the Program (Advanced Computing, Nanotechnologies and Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship, through UTEN – University – Enterprise Network).
Through the several instruments offered by the Program, which ensure a consistent approach to the knowledge-to-value chain, researchers in Portugal and at UT Austin will come together to tap into scientific topics with social and economic relevance at a global level, from space and science technology to medical physics and nuclear medicine, nano-science and technologies, high-performance computing (including data analytics, visualization and artificial intelligence), to list a few.
Contact Us
Executive Director
in Portugal
Andreia Passos
andreia.passos@utaustinportugal.org
Executive Director
at Austin
Marco Bravo
bravo@utaustinportugal.org
