Contract signed to renew FCT-MIT partnership for another five years

The Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) has renewed its partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The contract, signed this month, formalizes the launch of the second phase of the MIT Portugal Program, approved at the end of 2012. This pioneering collaboration in the field of education and research, which brings together universities, industry and government around a common agenda of excellence and innovation, is now guaranteed until 2017.

Launched in 2006, the Program is committed to training highly qualified human resources in science, technology, entrepreneurship and innovation and to developing and implementing projects with a high economic and social impact in emerging areas of systems engineering: sustainable energy systems, transport systems, bio-engineering systems and advanced production methods.

In this second phase, the emphasis is on strengthening innovation and entrepreneurship, through the development and implementation of larger projects in areas of economic relevance, and the promotion of "living laboratories" that demonstrate, through concrete projects, the economic and social benefits of partnerships between universities and companies for the development of technology with a high capacity for commercialization and export.

In the same vein, the training of teachers and students in MIT's unique and entrepreneurial environment aims to stimulate change in higher education in Portugal, with positive repercussions on the Portuguese economy.

Miguel Seabra, President of FCT, expresses his expectations for this second phase of the MIT-Portugal Program, "The challenges ahead are considerable, as the program will have to operate in a context of a smaller budget, but we have every confidence that the potential, in terms of knowledge and products, created by the MIT-Portugal Program in the first phase will be realized in this second phase, through application to concrete situations in our social fabric, innovation and entrepreneurship."