For two days, Fernando Alexandre, Minister of Education, Science, and Innovation, led a Portuguese mission to one of the top-ten public US Universities, the University of Texas at Austin, where he had the opportunity to visit with the institution’s highest representatives and with UT Austin faculty and researchers, many of which have been engaging with the long-standing UT Austin Portugal Program through teaching activities, research projects, scientific supervision and entrepreneurial mentorship. The agenda also offered the Minister a chance to tour labs and meet up with visiting researchers from Portuguese institutions who were spending some time at UT to undertake research activities under the Program.
The first day of the visit started off with the Minister being hosted by UT Austin’s President Jay Hartzell at the Main Building or The Tower, the heart of the Longhorn Nation. President Hartzell underscored UT’s commitment to spreading scientific excellence and bold innovation well beyond campus, highlighting the partnership with Portugal through the Program as a remarkable example of what starts at UT can change the world. On the way to meeting with Daniel T. Jaffe, Vice-President for Research, to discuss research and innovation opportunities, the delegation visited the Harry Ramson Museum Center where it is sacredly kept one of the rarest copies of the first printouts of the Portuguese epic poem written by Luíz Vaz de Camões, Os Lusíadas.
The visit continued with a meeting involving the Area Directors for Advanced Computing (Dan Stanzione), Nanotechnologies (Brian Korgel), and Space-Earth Interactions (Patrick Heimbach). The discussion focused on laying the groundwork for a renewed stage of the Partnership, exploring synergies with Portugal’s planned or ongoing flagship initiatives and major investments. The Minister also met for the first time with the PIs of some of the strategic and exploratory research projects funded by the Program in Phase 3 and with the group of exchange researchers who are visiting the University under the Program’s mobility scheme. These encounters offered the Minister a chance to hear from the researchers themselves about the uniqueness of transatlantic collaboration and the value that the country can take from investing in those research and educational funding instruments.
Looking to improving the alignment of the Program with Portugal’s goals for talent and workforce development and technology-based entrepreneurship in critical areas, the visit included discussions with TxEEE, Texas Engineering Executive Education of the Cockrell School of Engineering (Maria Arrellaga, Director of Marketing and Communications, and Edgardo Irizarry, Assistant Director of Continuing Engineering Education); with the McCombs School of Business (Lynn Slattery, Executive Education; Mellie Price, M.S. in Technology Commercialization) and the Cockrell School of Engineering (Eric Bickel, Engineering Management Master’s program).
Further opportunities in innovation, entrepreneurship and technology commercialization were on day 2 with Daniel Hussey, Licensing and collaborative research (Discovery to Impact), Weston Waldo, Assistant Director, at NSF Southwest I-Corps™ Hub, and Richard Amato, Portfolio Director at the Austin Technology Incubator. This focus has already borne fruit, namely with the recent TechLaunch initiative, an advanced training program for innovators aiming to commercialize technologies.
On Day 2, the Portuguese Minister visited some of UT Austin’s most advanced research and educational facilities: the Texas Advanced Computing Center, the H2@Scale (Hydrogen Research and Demonstration Facility, the Texas Materials Institute, and Texas Inventionworks). The tours were complemented by thematic presentations that provided the Minister with additional information about major initiatives the University is leading in areas where Portugal needs to create critical mass (e.g. semicondutors: advanced packaging and clean energy) or is well-positioned to strengthen its competitive edge.
In addition to Minister Fernando Alexandre, the Portuguese delegation included Mickael Cruz, Adviser at the Minister’s Cabinet, José Manuel Mendonça, National Principal Investigator of the Program, Rui Oliveira, National Co-PI, and Andreia Passos, Executive Director of the initiative. On the UT Austin side, John Ekerdt, PI of the UT Austin Portugal Program, Fernanda Leite, Associate Dean for Research – Cockrell School of Engineering -, and Marco Bravo, Co-PI and Executive Director of the Program in Austin.
The credits of the photos used to illustrate this news piece belong to UT Austin.
