Institutional Brochure

1 University of Porto Faculty of Engineering

FACULTY OF ENGINEERINGUniversity of Porto

University of Porto Faculty of Engineering 2

CONTENTS

A WORLD-CLASS UNIVERSITYFEUP - a School with international recognition

PASSIONATE PEOPLE

THE INNOVATION HUB Partnerships in research

BRIDGES OF TRUSTBusiness partnerships

A SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITY

OPORTO - A VIBRANT TRADING CITY

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BUILDING TRUST

The strategic plan for the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (FEUP) is based on three main concepts: quality with international standards; internationalization; cooperation with society. In the open and global market economy in which we live, where cooperation and competition go hand in hand, capacity for cooperation depends primarily on an essential prerequisite: building and gaining the trust of stakeholders and society.

Trust is built on mutual respect, based on quality and transparency; Quality has to be global - in terms of human resources, facilities (in our case, our laboratories and equipment), cultural opportunities, and solid, proven achievement; Transparency describes the frank and honest way in which we inform society of our mission and activities.

This brochure aims at contributing to building trust by explaining clearly who we are and what we do. Never in its long history has FEUP had so much to offer to young people from all over the world in education, in research and innovation and in cultural activities. International rankings make it clear that in a large number of our domains of work our research is at the highest international standards. In education, Portuguese students mark us as their first preference and international students can now benefit from courses adapted to their needs. Culturally, students find at FEUP, in the university as a whole and in the city, an environment full of interest and opportunities for action and socializing.

FEUP is a great choice for people who are passionate about engineering to come and study or develop research work in a modern campus and a historic city.

Sebastião Feyo de Azevedo Director of FEUP


A WORLD-CLASS UNIVERSITY

World-Class Universities are institutions whose scientific and pedagogical quality enables them to respond to the challenges of a global market in constant flux; they are universities that are aware of their place on the current international map of higher education and that confront the paradox of a growing competitiveness side by side with the need for mutual collaboration.

The University of Porto in the North of Portugal has a growing presence in the global networks of academic and scientific excellence, which promotes the transfer of its research results worldwide. Affirming its position as a research university, it contributes significantly to the scientific produc-tion of the country. U.Porto is also aware of the crucial role that it plays in the socioeconomic development of its region and of the country through interaction with society in general and the productive fabric in particular. In that sense, it puts its faith more and more in raising the value of its research activities by means of the transfer of knowledge and technologies to industry and the creation of partnerships with businesses, partnerships which have already resulted in innovations with proved success in both national and international markets.

U.Porto participates in various European education programmes that have contributed to its growing attractiveness in the eyes of the international public. The number of foreign degree

students in mobility programmes has increased significantly, and with them the number of mobility accords celebrated with the most highly-regarded higher education institutions.

In its homeland, U.Porto is the preferred choice of those applying to enter higher education establish-ments, which means that every year the number of applicants is much larger than the available places. This is due to the recognition of the quality of training that it offers, which translates into indices of employability above the national average. U.Porto is a comprehensive institution, with many faculties and schools providing diverse domains of knowledge in constant interaction, and offering opportunities for training at all stages of life. Its mission being the integral education of citizens, it offers numerous extra-curricular activities in such diverse areas as sport, the arts, entre-preneurship and voluntary service.

The recognition of U.Porto as an institution of excellence is reflected in the place that it occupies in the international rankings, where it is positioned among the 100 best in Europe. U.Porto thus emerges as a great university in the Portuguese-speaking and Iberian-American worlds, keeping privileged ties of cooperation with countries with which it shares linguistic or historical kinship, which reinforces its leading international role.


FEUP - A SCHOOL WITH INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION

FEUP’s claim to be an international school of engineering does not come down just to the ever-greater number of foreign students that, every year, choose it as their destination and for whom specific programmes of soft-landing and integration are developed; nor to the many foreign researchers who enrich the scientific work of the Faculty and make the atmosphere of the campus multicultural.

No, important though these visitors are, the principal force of internationalization in FEUP resides in the cooperative relations that it maintains with businesses and prestigious higher-education institutions in Europe and the rest of the world, with special emphasis on the USA and Brazil. This collaboration covers aspects as diverse as research applied to industry, professional training and mobility programmes for students and staff, and

the establishment of joint degrees. FEUP has come to enlarge its basis of cooperation, also participating in the main international networks and in prestigious engineering associations. Its vast network of contacts has stimulated the organization of numer-ous international conferences on its campus, giving the whole community the opportunity of seeing topics of general interest debated by the world’s top specialists.

Recognition of the quality of FEUP is also visible in the high place it occupies in the most respected international rankings of engi-neering, which, associated with the excellent integrated training it offers to its students, has provided them with outstanding positions in the national and worldwide labour markets.


PASSIONATE PEOPLE

I was in the fourth year of my Master’s and I really wanted to start to apply my academic knowledge. There was nothing better than to apply it in a volunteer association tailored to suit qualified people, which enabled me to participate directly in development projects in Portugal and Mozambique. I offered to work for EpDAH - Engineering for Development and Humanitarian Assistance, whose nucleus in Oporto functions in FEUP.I joined a team and by the end of my fourth year I had helped to hand over an engineering project, made very good friends, and, above all, I had contributed to the building of a girl’s boarding school that was going to help forty disadvantaged children.In fact, there’s nothing more gratifying than applying the knowledge we have in favour of the good of others, while, at the same time, increasing our professional experience and personal satisfaction.

It is the passion for a cause that leads to dedication and which, allied with talent, translates into the attainment of success in demanding fields of activity. The day-to-day life of FEUP is built of stories of success that are replicated in the multiple spheres of life in this faculty.

The quality of the physical resources available to students is undeniable. It includes laboratories, computer rooms open 365 days a year and spaces for culture, sport and leisure. However, if the potential of an institution resides in its resources, its true worth is realized through the activities of its people: through teachers who dedicate their lives to education and science and whose talent leads to national and international awards, or who take on projects that link the Faculty to the outside world by their enterprising nature; through specialized co-workers who give their all in performing their tasks, helping students from the day they arrive to the day they leave to join the world of work, providing all sorts of information, library and cultural resources; and through students with initiative who bring to life the clubs, music and theatre groups and voluntary service associations which enrich and energize the world of FEUP.

RICARDO GONÇALVES - STUDENT AND VOLUNTEER


I got to know the Faculty during an international mobility pro-gramme, where I had the chance to attend inspiring classes, to meet highly motivating professors and develop skills in the area of engineering that fascinated me most: robotics. So I decided to extend my stay in Oporto by another six months. I took advantage of this extra time to do my Integrated Master’s dissertation and get closer contacts with teachers and researchers in the area. When the mobility time ended, I went back to Brazil, but never lost contact with FEUP. A year later I was back here, this time to start a longer stay - for my doctorate. I chose the Faculty on the basis of its high academic indices, its prestigious international reputation and the intense interaction with centres of excellence in research. Being part of the FEUP community has been one of the best experiences in my life.

As an ERASMUS student just back to FEUP for the last semester of my mechanical engineering degree, I received an email from the career service of the Faculty about the ADI (Agency for Innovation) program at CERN (European Organisation for Nuclear Research). This was an opportunity that I didn’t want to let escape. I applied and now, after two years as ADI and three years as CERN Fellow, here I am with a staff contract at CERN and responsible for all the safety aspects of the ALICE experiment. Thanks to FEUP’s career service, today I perform a very interesting and challenging task in one of the biggest research institutes in the world.My training at FEUP allowed me to be here today, as well trained as engineers coming from the most prestigious universities all over the world, like MIT or Oxford. The community of FEUP alumni working at CERN confirms the quality of the training provided and the hard work mentality developed during the engineering degree.

MARCELO PETRY - BRAZIL, PHD STUDENTFERNANDO PEDROSA - ALUMNUS, WORKING IN CERN


FRANCISCO GALINDO-ROSALES AND LAURA CAMPO-DEAÑO - SPAIN, POST-DOCTORAL RESEARCHERS

THE INNOVATION HUB

After post-doctoral research experience in the Katholieke Uni-versiteit Leuven (Belgium), we felt that we needed to go further in our training as scientists. We bet on coming to FEUP due to the excellence of the work done in the area of the mechanics of complex fluids and microfluidics in the Centre for Transport Phenomena Studies (CEFT). From the beginning our colleagues helped us to fit in and supported us in everything, including getting post-doctoral grants provided by the Portuguese govern-ment through the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT). On the personal level, we adapted easily to life in Oporto and felt ourselves at home, seeing that both the culture and the lifestyle are very similar to those in Spain. Apart from this, we really like the city, to the point where we consider it one of the most enchanting in Europe.

In the current globalized society, the process of innovation is powered by cooperation among multiple actors who, at the same time, are in competition; this constructive rivalry leads them to seek to get the best strategic position in the vast web of knowledge creation.

The position of FEUP on the map of Research, Development and Innovation (R&D+I) is reinforced not only by the international networks of which it is part but also by the surroundings of its location, the Asprela Campus. The University of Porto Science and Technology Park (UPTEC), including the Technological Pole, is to be found here; UPTEC is a space which brings together more than a hun-dred businesses in incubation. Besides other faculties of U.Porto, other universities and polytech-nics, the Asprela Campus also hosts a central teaching hospital and a cancer institute, as well as recognized Portuguese and foreign research institutes. It is an eminently technological campus, in which the strong presence of engineering technologies, health sciences and entrepreneurship are seen to be highly propitious to the process of innovation.

This ‘ecosystem’, teeming with ideas, is favorable to the rapid evolution of knowledge; it makes FEUP the true ‘hub’ of open innovation.


The establishment of partnerships with external entities enables FEUP not only to enrich its research activities by sharing ideas and experiences but also to look for satisfactory solutions to current global challenges. There are countless projects that demonstrate the capacity of FEUP to bring about innovation in conjunction with the interface institutes that form a platform of support for research in the Faculty. Moreover, research is also strengthened by the specialist centers of expertise in the Asprela Campus, specialized in areas as diverse as Sustainable Energy, Robotics, Advanced Manufac-turing, Smart Cities, Health Innovation and Ambient Assisted Living. The area of Ambient Assisted Living is developed in the Research Centre for Communication and Assisted Information Solutions (AICOS), which the Fraunhofer Institute decided to create in the Asprela campus. In agreement with Fraunhofer Portugal (FhP), ‘… collaboration with FEUP has been beneficial to both institutions: while FEUP allows FhP access to its students and highly qualified researchers, FhP prepares them in the best way for future employment.’

I was looking for research positions in the field of energy and systems engineering. Portugal was a natural place to start looking because the renewable energy field here is so advanced. Two years ago, I was awarded a scholarship for the project NODES, at INESC TEC, a laboratory associated with FEUP. After a year of research, I applied to the FEUP/Carnegie Mellon University dual degree PhD program in Engineering and Public Policy (EPP). The study applies deep technical knowledge to solv-ing challenging, large-scale problems with wide-ranging impacts. FEUP is a great place to undertake this type of interdisciplinary research because of the collegiate and open atmosphere among both PhD students and faculty. The forte of FEUP in the pillars of engineering is a strong contribution to the holistic view of strategic problems that EPP tries to solve.

KRISTEN SCHELL - USA, PHD STUDENT PARTNERSHIPS IN RESEARCH


BRIDGES OF TRUST

The contribution that universities make to society goes beyond the boundaries of teaching and research. FEUP promotes the application of the academic knowledge it generates to solving problems in the outside world. It does this through links to the business and industrial fabric of society, opening doors to the establishment of relationships of long-lasting confidence.

The elevated technical-scientific potential of the Faculty has come to be applied in countless technology transfer projects. The knowledge of university teachers and researchers has also contributed to the training and consultancy services rendered to the business and public sectors, as well as to the estab-lishment of standardized procedures that guarantee the quality and safety of products and services.

No less important is the promotion of entrepreneurship, realized through advanced training in innovation and technological enterprise, the publicizing of incentive programmes, organization of counseling initiatives like the ‘“Ideas for Business” Consulting Room’, and making contacts available with consultancy firms, business angels, seed and venture capital. With the incentive of UPTEC, a significant part of the entrepreneurial projects of FEUP teachers and researchers has given rise to start-ups and spin-offs. In this way, FEUP has contributed to the innovation and revitalization of the business world, thus confirming the impact that it makes on society.

PROFESSOR AND ENTREPRENEUR

The history of BERD is intimately linked to my academic career in FEUP. It was a sequence of research projects in the Organic Pre-stressing System (OPS) carried out in a partnership between FEUP and Mota-Engil, which led to the development of a product innovative at world level and with a high sales potential due to its technical-economic advantages. Set up as a spin-off of FEUP research, BERD was born in response to an opportunity to develop and market the OPS system, in 2006. A design patented in dozens of countries, it began its development in Portugal, but has been applied abroad.Many dissertations and theses have been written on OPS in FEUP, resulting in various scientific articles published in the most highly-regarded journals in the world in the area of Bridge Engineering. It provides a perfect example of the ‘marriage’ between the Faculty and industry.


The bridge that links FEUP to the domain of business is built via partnerships that consolidate the relations of trust established between the academic and business spheres.

The UPTEC innovation pole, situated on the Asprela Campus, is a clear example of the cooperation between these two worlds. Bu-sinesses like CIN, Sonae Indústria and Efacec invest in laboratories on this site, where they seek to develop innovative ideas with clear advantages for both parties. According to Efacec (an important electrical-engineering firm which is investing in an innovative pro-cess of development of solar cells) ‘FEUP has been for a long time a privileged field of action, where various initiatives of cooperation have been realized, guaranteeing the funding of applied research in the university and the creation of new products and commercial solutions for Efacec’.

IBM also provides a good example of cooperation, having opted to install in FEUP its only Centre for Advanced Studies (CAS) in Por-tugal, oriented to applied research in Engineering, Management and Service Sciences - Solutions for Smart Cities. ‘CAS Portugal was deliberately installed in FEUP because of its prestige, know-how and dynamism (…). Its strength rests on assets sparked off by the interaction of U.Porto researchers with the IBM R&D teams and their technology,’ IBM Portugal emphasizes.

The promotion of innovation and entrepreneurship in FEUP is still vi-sible through the international networks of which it is a part, as is the case of the Business and Innovation Network. On this networking platform it is intended to cultivate relations of trust and to develop international partnerships that foment the establishment of R&D (Research and Development) consortia, the transfer of technology

and the creation of technology-based companies. According to the manager of the Sheffield University Innovation Centre, also a partner in the network, ‘this collaboration can lead to the development of a “technology accelerator”, providing access to support programmes, counseling and mentoring to help to develop the capacities of busi-ness managers, as well as technical support for the development of marketable products’.

There are various cases of successful start-ups and spin-offs nurtured in the bosom of FEUP, and which have found here all that they needed for their innovative growth. ‘As I deal with other schools of engineering (…), I can, without favor, say that I don’t know another service that car-ries out [support to R&D and entrepreneurship] better (…)’, says Paulo Santos, CEO of Tomorrow Options. This firm, a spin-off of FEUP/INESC TEC, develops and sells medical devices in the global market.

BUSINESS PARTNERSHIPS


Even more precious than valuing the heritage of the past is preserving all that is valuable in the present and achieving sustainable investment in the future. FEUP seeks to ensure that each minute closed in its past opens a new minute into a viable future; hence its commitment to applying the concept of sustainability to everything it does.

Ecological and Environmental policies are visible, not only at the level of energy saving obtained by the intelligent management of buildings, but also from initiatives like the transplanting of over 20 olive trees condemned to disappear below the waters of the Alqueva reservoir, but which now enrich the approximately 23,000 m2 of green space of FEUP. FEUP seeks to create conditions for the enjoyment of those spaces as an investment in the well-being of its community, which is also reflected in facilities placed around the whole green area of the Faculty. Concerns about sustainable development are not, however, confined within the boundaries of the institution. The engineering projects that are turned to the exterior have a markedly ecological aspect, and the role that it plays in urban renewal and in the construction of the cities of the future makes FEUP a force for benign intervention in society.

This influence is striking from the economic point of view for the growing influence that it has on the northern region of the country, and from the social point of view for the support provided to public and private institutions as well as for the promotion of projects involving both local and international voluntary commitment. After all, FEUP does not just train engineers; it educates citizens for the world.

A SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITY


Oporto (as it is usually called by English speakers) is the welcoming and historic city which gave its name to Portugal. In its ancient riverside heart, narrow lanes run steeply down to the River Douro, which rises in the north of Spain and empties into the Atlantic Ocean at Foz do Douro.

Whoever visits Oporto for the first time immediately feels the characteristic pulse of a city that is not just the regional capital of northern Portugal, but also the main trading centre of the north-west of the Iberian Peninsula. Traditionally known for the Port Wine trade, the region currently hosts a large part of Portuguese industry, notably the sectors of timber, furniture-making, textiles, garment manufacturing, footwear, metal-working and various engineering industries. Its commercial aspect is favoured by such structures as the seaport of Leixões, which carries 25% of the country’s inter-national trade, and the Francisco Sá Carneiro Airport, recognized as one of the best in the world in the traffic category of up to 5 million passengers; its numerous low cost connections to European destinations have brought growing dynamism to the city.

The beauty of its historic centre, designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, in combination with the modern buildings designed by acclaimed names in architecture like Siza Vieira, Souto Moura and Rem Koolhaas, confers special enchantment on the city of Oporto. The agreeable atmosphere, excellent cuisine, and range of culture and leisure activities at competitive prices, make it one of Europe’s preferred destinations and recipient of praise from such international publications as the Lonely Planet guide and the New York Times.

OPORTO - A VIBRANT TRADING CITY


For more information:Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do PortoRua Dr. Roberto Frias, s/n 4200-465 Porto, Portugal

T +351 22 508 1400

[email protected]

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