Long tradition of innovation and experiment lives on today
NEW DIRECTION THE BARROSO ADMINISTRATION SHOWS GREATER AWARENESS OF THE ROLE THAT SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT NEED TO PLAY IN A MORE COMPETITIVE PORTUGUESE ECONOMY

MAKING PROGRESS Portugal’s pioneering spirit is celebrated in the overseas discoveries monument and lives on in today’s scientific research

DURING the 15th and 16th centuries, Portuguese explorers were responsible for the discovery of a great part of the world. This went hand-in-hand with a spirit of scientific inquiry that led to developments in
navigation, instrumentation and shipbuilding.
“One of the features of the Portuguese people, as history has shown, is their eagerness to
innovate and experiment,” Prime Minister José Durão Barroso said when he addressed the New York Stock Exchange recently.

Mr. Barroso quoted two modern examples. One was the advanced freeway payment system, pioneered by the Portuguese in the early 1990s, that allows automatic payment of toll fees without the need for vehicles to stop. The other was the pre-paid system for mobile phones, again first introduced in Portugal, whereby customers buy phone time before use.

Around 60 percent of Portugal’s national research and development (R&D) expenditure is centered on the Tagus Valley region, where the Lisbon Science and Technology Park, Taguspark, was established in 1992. Set up by the government as a private company, Taguspark has shareholders from the banking sector, university and R&D institutions, the enterprise sector, local authorities and central government agencies.
The park encourages and supports entrepreneurship and promotes the commercialization of the technology and technological services of its tenants. It has more than 130 tenants, including three universities, five R&D institutions, several large companies and a business and innovation center.

FERNANDO RAMOA RIBEIRO President of FCT

Of the 5,000 people who work there, 1,700 of them work in the innovation center in more than 100 small and medium-sized technology companies concentrating on information and communications technology.
Fernando Ramoa Ribeiro,President of the Lisbon-based Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), says the spirit that drove the Portuguese explorers is still present in the country today. “That capacity for innovation is still there,” he asserts.
The foundation provides grants for students to study for PhD degrees at foreign universities. “Of those students who choose to go abroad—about 45 percent of the total—the highest number choose the United Kingdom and the next highest choose the United States,” Prof. Fernando Ramoa Ribeiro says.

“Many of our students who go to the United States are considered brilliant and complete their PhDs in very short times. They are our best ambassadors.”
At present, Portugal has too many students in the field of human sciences, where jobs are difficult to find, while the number of young scientists and engineers is decreasing.
“There is a lack of engineers in certain fields such as infomatics and we have to do something about attracting students who are 15-years-old and at the period when they have to choose between human science or science and technology,” says Prof. Ramoa Ribeiro.
Together with the Gulbenkian Foundation, the FCT is launching a series of conferences around the country, in which experts in various relevant fields speak on their specializations.

Government action has brought the internet to all Portuguese schools and created an agency called Ciência Viva—Science Alive—to help secondary schools set up small research projects. However, Prof. Ramoa Ribeiro laments reduced cooperation between universities and Portuguese business and the lack of research laboratories in companies.
“As a result, science in Portugal is financed mostly by the state—about 75 percent—and only 25 percent or less by the companies, while in Europe the average is 40 percent by the state and 60 percent by companies,” he says.
“The universities should be more open to solving industry problems and the companies should recognize the importance of in-house science and technology development.”

The state runs a “PhDs for Industry” scheme under which it pays half the salary of any PhD engaged in industry for three years, while the FCT’s own innovation agency promotes links between the universities and the business world. Prof. Ramoa Ribeiro believes these kinds of initiatives will create a new mentality in Portuguese industry.
“It is our wish that in five years’ time, the role of the FCT in financing research and development may be less important than it is today. In a developing society that task will be taken over by private initiative and FCT will be a willing partner,” he says.
The Institute for Systems and Computer Engineering, INESC, acts as an interface between the university system and the business sector. A contract-based research organization, it focuses on a wide variety of activities, ranging from R&D and technology transfer to advanced training.
Established in 1980, INESC is a non-profit making private association, owned in equal parts by academic institutions and businesses. Operating outside the state framework, it combines both corporate and university resources and provides high-level training in both the educational and vocational spheres.

JOSÉ TRIBOLET President of INESC

“The idea was to create a tool to support dynamic research and development with freedom and capability of expansion, through a dynamic marriage between business and the universities,” says founder and President José Tribolet.
“The concept was revolutionary in Portugal at the time of our foundation in 1980,” he adds. “At that time, research and development was essentially done either through national laboratories or through scientific centers in the universities, all of them state-owned.”
With his experience in the U.S., Dr. Tribolet believed it was possible to match unexploited capabilities and potential that existed in the universities with the need in Portuguese industry, services and administration for innovation in research and, above all, for people with skills.
“We were able to produce a whole generation of people with new skills in modern, digital communications that became the basis for the successful telecommunications revolution in Portugal.”

Dr. Tribolet describes the period of the previous socialist administration as a difficult time for science and technology in Portugal. Today he is more optimistic. “We are now in a period of transition,” he says.
INESC itself has undergone an effective process of restructuring to strengthen it financially and enable it to meet the country’s needs. “INESC is not the whole solution, but it is certainly a very important part of the solution,” Dr. Tribolet says.