About the MIT-Portugal Program
Overview
The Portuguese Government, through the Ministry of Science,
Technology and Higher Education, is entering into a long-term
collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT) focusing on basic research and education. The objectives,
framework and structure of the collaboration were developed
during a five month assessment study conducted by MIT between
February and July 2006, which concluded that the excellence of
the research identified in Portuguese research centers
throughout the assessment exercise recommends that MIT foster
collaborations with Portuguese institutions. Also, the study
acknowledges that the commitment of the Portuguese Government in
strengthening science and technology and in promoting
international collaborations in higher education and in science
and technology is making Portugal an interesting place for doing
research and a relevant partner for future collaborations in the
emerging knowledge-based, globalized economy.
The Portuguese Government intends to strengthen the country’s
knowledge base at an international level through a strategic
investment in people, knowledge and ideas and the MIT-Portugal
Program has been designed together with other international
partnerships with renowned research and education institutions
worldwide to contribute adequate funding to support the
development of basic research and education and to foster a set
of new and diversified institutional partnerships. It should
also be noted that the goals of the overall operation include
launching and promoting new research-based consortia at a
national level and the MIT-Portugal Program contributes for this
effort by involving 10 schools of higher education and
7 different universities, together with a large number of
research centres and Associated Laboratories, as well as State
Laboratories.
The assessment involved extensive discussions and preliminary
planning by faculty at MIT and in Portugal to determine the
principle focus areas of investigation as well as key
institutional, operational, financial and technical issues, and
has resulted in two main foci for collaborative agreements.
These are:
- a formal, ongoing cooperative arrangement in the area of
management sciences which will be explored in a program
design and planning process concerning a possible multi-year
collaboration around management education and
technology-based entrepreneurship; and
- a five-year agreement for research and education with an
engineering systems focus, responding to the increasing
size, scope and complexity of systems in today’s global
competitive environment.
Management Sciences
The cooperative arrangement in the area of management
sciences will be conducted at MIT through the
Sloan School
of Management (MIT Sloan) to work with leading schools in
Portugal, fostering new horizons for transatlantic collaboration
in management science and technology-based entrepreneurship in a
way oriented towards the goals of the revisited Lisbon strategy
for competitiveness and employment in Europe. The specific
objectives for the first year include:
- jointly develop a global MBA program aimed at
attracting students from Portugal and other nations, in a
way to strengthen the international reputation and
visibility of business education in Portugal;
- jointly develop a "Sloan-Lisbon Seminar Series on
Management Science" in order to strengthen PhD
management education and help building national and
international relationships and research consortia; and
- jointly develop a mid-career program in
technology-based entrepreneurship.
The program will involve MIT Sloan and Portuguese faculty and
visiting appointments at MIT will enrich the collaboration.
Following the MIT’s assessment report of July 2006, the
design of the global MBA program will be led by the School of
Economics and Business at the Portuguese Catholic University
(FCEE/UCP) and the School of Economics at the Universidade Nova
de Lisboa (FE/UNL) and will also involve faculty of ISCTE
Business School (ISCTE) and of the School of Economics and
Management at the Technical University of Lisbon (ISEG/UTL).
Three seminars will be arranged for the academic year 2006/07
with active participation of MIT faculty. The four schools
mentioned above will jointly arrange the Seminar Series in close
collaboration with MIT Sloan.
A mid-career program in technology-based entrepreneurship
will be planned, following the MIT assessment study conducted
during the period February-July 2006.
The program governance structure includes a Program Governing
Committee, responsible for policy oversight with respect to
overall objectives of the relationship, and Operating Committees
for the activities planned.
Engineering Systems
The collaboration focused on engineering systems gives
emphasis to large-scale systems that not only have critical
technological components, but also have significant enterprise
and socio-technical level interactions that call for engineers
in leadership positions to have training in engineering systems
that goes beyond traditionally defined engineering disciplines.
The program will be coordinated at MIT by the Engineering
Systems Division, and will include collaborations with various
other departments, divisions, and schools at MIT. The following
specific fields were identified as the initial focus areas for
the MIT Portugal collaboration, on top of which an integrative
anchor program (in engineering systems) will be developed:
-
Engineering Design and Advanced Manufacturing: This
focus area emphasizes the development of design as a key
academic field. This is aimed at enabling the development of
a cadre of innovative leaders who are educated not only in
the fundamental elements of technology management and
design, but also trained in the practical exploitation of
those core skills in the formation and leadership of
knowledge-based creative enterprises. There will be
particular emphasis in the automotive and aeronautic
sectors, as well as in medical devices.
-
Transportation Systems: The ultimate goal of this area
is to promote the design and operation of integrated,
technology-intensive, intermodal transportation systems,
considering the integration of intelligent transportation
systems (ITS), the high-speed rail system and airport
infrastructures.
-
Energy Systems: Extending far beyond traditional energy
research, this area will focus on the dynamics among energy
services and supplies, including opportunities for
developing combined heat and power and incorporating
renewables in the distribution network.
-
Bio-Engineering Systems: Efforts in this focus area
will build on the research capacity existing in Portugal and
develop emerging aspects of bio-engineering, cell and tissue
engineering, and bioprocess and computational biology.
A number of joint research and educational projects will be
undertaken in each focus area involving participants from both
Portugal and MIT. Educational programs will vary for each focus
area and will consist of a mix of doctoral programs,
professionally-oriented master degrees, and short courses.
Faculty will be encouraged to make new educational material
publicly available, namely making use of
Creative Commons
licensing. At MIT, OpenCourseWare
will be used.
An integrative anchor program will feature research and
curriculum development led by the
Engineering Systems Division. Research addressing
fundamental issues in engineering systems such as complexity,
uncertainty, large-scale system architecture, security, and
sustainability will cut across the Focus Areas, providing
coherence around emerging themes. Related curriculum development
efforts on methodologies and fundamental system concepts will
provide materials that could be used in education programs in
different focus areas. A video-conference seminar series will
help sustain a cross-Atlantic research community of interested
scholars and educators.
The program will involve MIT and Portuguese faculty, graduate
students, post-doctoral associates and research staff. Visiting
appointments of faculty at MIT and in Portuguese institutions
will enrich the collaboration. Portuguese graduate students will
spend time at MIT as visiting students and Portuguese students
will be encouraged to apply to MIT for graduate degrees. The
collaboration will involve opportunities for a significant
number of professionals.
To develop the program in Portuguese institutions it is
expected, besides the involvement of their faculty, the
establishment of new contracts with invited professors and
postdoctoral researchers with recognized merit in international
basis, in a way that reinforces their education and research
capability, involving a total of around 14 new professorships
and 18 post-docs annually in the program. The program
will also involve around 35 new graduate students and 80 new
professional master students annually in Portuguese
institutions.
The program envisages the collaboration of students,
researchers and professors of Portuguese institutions with
research teams at MIT, where the "Portugal Program at MIT" will
be developed, involving around 38 professors, 15
post-docs and 46 graduate students at MIT annually.
MIT will also be available to receive up to 33 graduate
students and 15 researchers/professors from
Portuguese institutions visiting MIT each year. All MIT
professors, researchers and PhD students will have a
co-affiliation with a Portuguese Institution.
Budget
The anticipated total public budget for the first 5 years of
the MIT-Portugal partnership in engineering systems amounts to
around 65 Million Euros (82 Million USD), from which 33 Million
Euros are to fund activities at MIT (41 M.USD) and 32 Million
Euros are public funding to Portuguese institutions. In
addition, private funding will be used to support activities in
industrial affiliates and to support advanced professional
education programs.
Annual Plans
The specific activities to be undertaken by MIT and the
Portuguese consortia will be specified in Annual Plans. Since
the projects involve both MIT and Portuguese institutions, the
successful execution of joint activities will require each side
to carry out their contractual responsibilities. The MIT Annual
Plan will focus on those activities that MIT will undertake,
while the Portuguese Annual Plan will focus on the activities by
all the Portuguese institutions involved in each Focus Area. The
Portuguese organizations involved in the MIT-Portugal
Collaboration explicitly acknowledge their institutional
commitment to the overall program and the specific activities in
the Annual Plan by means of a written commitment, on which MIT
may rely, to participate in the MIT-Portugal Collaboration
through collaborations with MIT in the Focus Areas. These
commitments specify how each institution will contribute to the
overall program in general and specified projects in particular.
Governance The program governance structure includes a
Program Governing Committee responsible for policy oversight
with respect to overall objectives of the relationship as well
as approval of the annual plan and budget allocation for the
proposed activities in the annual plan; a Program Operating
Committee responsible for developing and initially approving
annual plans in the focus areas; and an External Review
Committee which will review and comment on the Annual Plan, and
evaluate the Program based on the specified Program objectives.
The Program Governing Committee and Program Operating
Committee will, simultaneously with their respective review and
approval of MIT's Annual Plan, apply the same review and
approval process to the Annual Plan of the Portuguese
institutions that are committing to collaborate with MIT on a
project or program.
The External Review Committee, which will meet at least twice
each year, consists of distinguished external advisors with
expertise in the Focus Areas and will have an important role in
the development of the program. Their independent review will
include recommendations about alterations in the Annual Plan and
budget to support achievement of the overall objectives of the
MIT-Portugal Collaboration.
Industrial Affiliates
Each of the thematic focus areas will
involve a new companion effort, MIT-Portugal Industrial
affiliates” with the goal of fostering new research consortia in
collaboration with MIT, leading to new frontiers of
transatlantic collaboration in science and technology. EDAM will
launch the first affiliates program with a set of leading
companies in the automotive sector, including VW AutoEuropa, the
largest car assembler in Portugal, and major auto-parts
manufacturers, as listed in Industrial Affiliates on the home
page.
Leadership
The MIT Program Director is Daniel Roos, Professor
and Founding Director of the Engineering Systems Division. The
Portuguese Program Director is Paulo Ferrão, Professor at
Instituto Superior Técnico, Technical University of Lisbon. Both
will be assisted by a team of joint coordinators for each focus
area, as follows:
- Engineering Design and Advanced Manufacturing, EDAM: Joel
Clark and Chris MacGee, Professors at MIT, Engineering Systems
Division António Cunha, Professor, School of Engineering,
University of Minho
- Energy Systems: David Marks and Steve
Connors, Professors at MIT, Engineering Systems Division Paulo
Ferrão, Professor, Instituto Superior Técnico, Technical
University of Lisbon
- Transportation Systems: Joe Sussman,
Professor at MIT, Engineering Systems Division João Bento,
Invited Professor, Instituto Superior Técnico, Technical
University of Lisbon
- Bioengineering Systems: Dava Newman,
Professor at MIT, Engineering Systems Division Manuel Nunes da
Ponte, Professor, School of Sciences and Technology,
Universidade Nova de Lisboa
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