For nearly two decades, researchers from The University of Texas at Austin have worked with Portugal’s best and brightest minds to launch unicorn startups, build up the country’s technology base and facilitate research collaborations beyond institutional and national borders.
This relationship will continue for years to come as UT and the Portuguese government recently renewed their partnership for another five years. UT is one of three universities, along with Carnegie Mellon University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, working with Portugal as part of this program.
“Partnering with UT has been a major boost for Portugal, improving our education system, enhancing research capabilities and galvanizing a vibrant startup scene for innovative companies,” said José Manuel Mendonça, national director of the program and a senior researcher at the Institute for Systems and Computer Engineering, Technology and Science in Portugal.
The UT Austin Portugal program, established in 2007, aims to solve important problems in critical and emerging technological fields through advancing education, research and commercialization of discoveries. The fourth phase of the partnership between UT and Portugal’s Foundation for Science and Technology will focus on several key areas arising from the collective work of the researchers, validated by the Portuguese government. They are:
- Developing sustainable energy systems and advancing hydrogen technologies.
- Scaling tools for greener computing and AI.
- Advancing critical materials discovery.
- Harnessing space technologies for Earth applications.
