Innovation

To further the development and growth of new Portuguese technology-based business ventures in emerging markets (*).

Building on the achievements of the last decade, the program continues to invest in differentiated advanced training, helping to bring cutting-edge Portuguese technologies to international markets. Alongside the industry affiliates and other institutions, UT Austin Portugal promotes entrepreneurial initiatives, fostering the development of new technology-based business ventures, oriented toward international markets, including the advancement of thorough customer discovery to launch and accelerate Portuguese start-up companies, as well as mentoring and professional guidance on corporate structure, strategy, business model development, and training professionals and entrepreneurial teams, facilitating their access to employment, market and funding opportunities, and network growth.

In the third phase of the UT Austin Portugal Program, the focus will be towards more early-stage venture development, transforming science into valuable technologies for businesses and societal matters, to invest and increase the knowledge and know-how of entrepreneurs.

The Program’s success in the 2019 Strategic Research Projects competition came at the expense of readjusting its budget to accommodate the support to more projects than it had been anticipated, especially at UT Austin. This reallocation tipped the Program’s investment balance to research and away from Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship (TIE) initiatives.