CMU Portugal gathered its community for a symposium

The community of students in the doctoral program at Carnegie Mellon University Portugal (CMU Portugal) met on September 15 at the Pavilhão do Conhecimento, in Lisbon, in a Symposium that took place in a hybrid format (face-to-face and online), with transmission on Youtube, still available for viewing, under the theme "Developing a supportive community for all researchers pursuing their PhDs under the scope of CMU Portugal initiatives".

The event was attended by 24 students from different areas of the CMU Portugal Doctoral Program, with the aim of sharing their experiences as doctoral students and their research work, namely in the areas of Data Science and Engineering; Artificial Intelligence; Machine Learning; Language Technologies; Data Analysis; Cloud Computing; and Engineering and Public Policy. The opening session was attended by Manuel Heitor, Minister for Science, Technology and Higher Education; José Paulo Esperança, Vice-President of the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT); Inês Lynce, Director of CMU Portugal; and Rosalia Vargas, President of the Ciência Viva Agency.

The Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education stressed the importance of the program in building new frontiers of knowledge, considering it an excellent opportunity for networking and sharing. He also said that year after year, CMU Portugal strives to be one of the best programs for the best students, with unique moments and opportunities.

For his part, the Vice-President of FCT stressed the importance of the CMU Portugal program and initiatives such as goPORTUGAL in stimulating international connections and knowledge sharing. He also pointed out that Portugal has been in the spotlight recently, as it is one of the countries where the largest number of "unicorn" companies have been created, and praised the choice of study areas for students in the CMU Portugal doctoral program.

The event was aimed at all applicants to CMU Portugal's doctoral program, applicants to affiliated doctoral programs and all doctoral candidates carrying out their thesis as part of one of CMU Portugal's research projects. The symposium promoted a collaborative research environment and dialog between students, alumni, scientific committees, researchers and coordinators of CMU Portugal's partners. It was also possible to create and strengthen work networks, giving participants the opportunity to present their work plans, results obtained to date and discuss the results with their peers.

The CMU Portugal program is part of a set of international partnerships established by FCT, with a focus on US institutions, which since 2006 have promoted the internationalization of national scientific and higher education institutions, involving more than 1,000 teachers and researchers and more than 1,500 master's and doctoral students. These partnerships are currently part of the goPORTUGAL initiative, which for the 2018-2023 period has set itself the objectives of strengthening and expanding the concept of international partnerships.