INESC Porto creates a critical mass of expertise for its Associate Laboratory
INESC Porto’s seven Central Units, four Associate Units and one Privileged Partner make a total of 569 collaborators, of which 193 have PhDs. These current dimensions give shape to the Associate Laboratory (LA) plan that INESC Porto aims to implement over the next five years and has submitted for recognition to the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT). With Associate Laboratory status since 2002, INESC Porto adopted a new organisational model in 2007 with the main objective of broadening the scope of the institution as an Associate Laboratory. The challenge revolves around the growing network that allows for scientific consolidation with new groups that maintain their administrative autonomy and therefore will open new doors to large-scale projects that are more demanding and multidisciplinary. The mission is being accomplished.
14th March 2011
More than 500 collaborators and close to 200 researchers with PhDs
A reinvented Associate Laboratory
On 1st March 2002 INESC Porto signed the Programme Contract with the FCT and became an Associate Laboratory of the Ministry of Science and Technology. This status is reserved for research institutions of great merit that have been recognised in external assessments as having the “capacity to cooperate in a stable, competent and efficient way in the pursuit of specific political, scientific and national technological objectives”.
With the signing of the Acts of Accession to Associate Laboratory on 16th February, INESC Porto Associate Units LIAAD (The Laboratory of Artificial Intelligence and Decision Support), CRACS (The Center for Research in Advanced Computer Systems) and UGEI (Unit of Management and Industrial Engineering), already linked to INESC Porto LA, were formally associated. The same act also welcomed the addition of CISTER (Research Centre in Real-Time Computing Systems). The collaboration with HASLab must also be mentioned (High Assurance Software Laboratory). HASLab is a group from the University of Minho that is currently a Privileged Partner and is in the process of restructuring in order to formally request inclusion within the Associate Laboratory.
Since becoming an Associate Laboratory in 2002 and signing the Acts of Accession in 2011, INESC Porto LA has more than doubled the number of collaborators (increasing from 256 in 2002 to 569 in 2011) and has almost quadrupled the number of researchers with PhDs (in 2002 there were 58 and they are now 193 in 2011). In the words of José Manuel Mendonça, the president of the institution, this growth was the result of a carefully planned strategy that followed “the increase of activity in various areas where INESC Porto has clearly established competencies, the attraction of top quality researches and R&D groups to follow our mission due to our position and because of our organisational research model, as well as our market-pull which is very significant in diverse areas”.
Artificial Intelligence
The Laboratory of Artificial Intelligence and Decision Support (LIAAD) was formed through the division of the previous Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science Laboratory Unit (LIACC that continues under this name) and from the start the unit declared its interest in joining the INESC Porto LA.
LIAAD focuses its activity on decision support systems with particular emphasis on data mining, forecasting, adaptive modelling and optimisation with applications in marketing, financial services, process scheduling, health, text information retrieval and many others. LIAAD has been linked to INESC Porto since 2008 and this Associate Unit now presents 55 collaborators, 23 of which have PhDs.
LIAAD is led by Pavel Brazdil, an ECCAI Fellow (the most important European scientific organisation in Artificial Intelligence) and is internationally recognised through its contact with around 30 universities worldwide. The constant flow of foreign visitors each year and its participation in editorial commissions for journals are examples of the Unit’s wide-reaching work. The Unit was awarded Very Good in its evaluation by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT).
This Associate Unit began working with INESC Porto LA in 2007 and supported the creation of the new organisational model for Associate Laboratory. An important group of members of this Unit are working at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Porto.
Advanced Computer Systems
The Center for Research in Advanced Computer Systems (CRACS) was also created from LIACC. The aim of the Unit was to form a group of scientific excellence with the capacity to have a world-wide impact on areas with high computational demands where new computational models and languages for scalable computing are fundamental.
CRACS was created in June 2007 as part of a proposal to the FCT for a new R&D unit led by Fernando Silva, who is now the Unit manager. The team is composed of ten researchers with permanent contracts and holding PhDs and close to 50 other collaborators of which 18 are doctoral students and 20 are masters students.
CRACS focuses on programming languages, parallel computing and distributed computing, data mining, intelligent systems and software architecture with the aim of resolving specific multidisciplinary problems in areas such as Biology, Medicine and Chemistry.
Since 2008 this Unit has worked in areas of joint interest with INESC Porto LA while maintaining their own structure at the Faculty of Science of the University of Porto. The international evaluation provided by the FCT awarded them with Very Good.
Management and Industrial Engineering
The Unit of Management and Industrial Engineering (UGEI) was formed in 1991 within the Industrial Engineering and Management branch of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Industrial Management, at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (FEUP). All of the professors at this branch work within the Unit.
The Unit works in the areas that bring Engineering, Management and Social Sciences together and aims to identify processes, techniques and indicators of efficiency in institutions. The foundations of the Unit’s strategy are found within the concept of ‘problem-driven research’ which implies the development of solutions that can be adjusted to the needs of each company or institution.
The Unit has been linked to INESC Porto since 2009 while maintaining a separate institutional status pending evaluation by the FCT. UGEI is led by José António Sarsfield Cabral and currently hosts twenty collaborators of which nine have PhDs. This Associate Unit promotes close cooperation with companies and follows a ‘problem-driven research’ strategy. The Unit was awarded Very Good in the last FCT evaluation and has participated in many successful projects; they promote multidisciplinarity and a strong culture of cooperation. It was the desire to expand their areas of influence and encourage growth that would lead to new projects that drew UGEI to INESC Porto LA.
Real-Time Computing Systems
The most recent member of the INESC Porto LA family, the Research Centre in Real-Time Computing Systems (CISTER), formalised its link on 16th February with the Memorandum of Understanding between INESC Porto and the Higher Engineering Institute in Porto (ISEP).
Following the management of Eduardo Tovar, CISTER has been awarded Excellent in consecutive international evaluations by the FCT. The centre is dedicated to analysis and project implementation of real-time embedded computing systems with special emphasis on communication networks, sensor networks, programming languages, operating systems and multiprocessor systems.
The Unit was created by four researchers in 1997 at ISEP from the IPP-HURRAY research group and currently works with 42 researchers of which 16 have PhDs. The research Unit was rapidly launched into being the world leaders in their areas of expertise on a national and international level. On a national level, in the 2004 evaluation process, CISTER was the only research unit in Portugal, in the areas of electrical engineering and computer science and engineering, to be awarded Excellent, the highest level available.
Consolidating the critical mass and presenting results
With the future addition of HASLab and the recognition by the FCT, the new organisational structure of INESC Porto LA will bring benefits for Portugal. These strong components allied to the robust central structure will create stability for the next five years, during which time no more additions are foreseen. The strong presence of INESC Porto LA in various areas that are fundamental for scientific and technological development directs the Associate Laboratory to focus on consolidating its critical mass of expertise and converting this enormous potential into results.
The project is ambitious and will be an enormous challenge. Despite the huge increase in dimensions, INESC Porto aims to preserve its essential genetic identity; that which permits it to develop cutting edge science and participate in the valorisation of knowledge and technology transfer to industry at the same time. This objective, persistently pursued to produce research that is socially relevant, is one of the characteristics which has made INESC Porto unique over the last decade and will remain part of its vision.
Opinions
Here are some opinions of the managers of the Associate Units regarding the importance of the recently signed agreements.
Pavel Brazdil (LIAAD)
For Pavel Brazdil, the signing of the Associate Laboratory Accession Agreement means “the recognition of the quality of our research by an Associate Laboratory that is internationally recognised for its excellence and the opening of innumerable collaborative opportunities and prospects for technology transfer”. “INESC Porto represents a more pragmatic and demanding approach to producing useful science without neglecting fundamental research. This concept is recognised and we hope to increase our quality and our impact through this association not just with the central units at INESC Porto, but also with other Associate Units such as CRACS, UGEI and CISTER”.
Eduardo Tovar (CISTER)
Eduardo Tovar recalls the history of cooperation between INESC Porto and CISTER. “Following the first evaluation in 2004, when CISTER was awarded Excellent, the unit received the multiannual funding and it had a pragmatic element that was very important (the basic funds, that were directly proportional to the number of researchers with PhDs, decreased). The funding was crucial in highlighting other strategies to increase critical mass and maintain a level of excellence.
This programme funding is separate from the budget lines of the research projects and therefore allowed CISTER to look to the recruitment of internationally recognised researchers with PhDs (CISTER was the a pioneer in mass internationalism of its human resources) and the development of specific cutting-edge RDI without certain commitments that are associated with project constraints.
For government reasons programme funding stopped being attributed to units, even those awarded excellent, while it is expected to remain for associate laboratories. The multiannual programme funding is fundamental for the implementation of strategies in the pursuit of excellence in an area as dynamic as information technology and communication.”
“On the other hand CISTER has to urgently find a solution for its facilities. The researchers at CISTER are currently distributed between three areas in different buildings on the ISEP campus and the administration facilities are in prefabricated buildings, as a provisional solution. This has limited both CISTER’s functions and its image which are progressively more incompatible with its activities and partners (national and international).
ISEP and IPP are aware of the problem and we were confident that this association with INESC Porto LA would help to improve the situation at the ISEP campus. A solution has since been found by ISEP and the IPP. This process must take place over the next four or five months and we are confident that the association with INESC Porto will bring this to a conclusion within the deadline”, he states.
Eduardo Tovar goes on to highlight the capital gains of the Associate Unit that he leads, “CISTER has a great capacity to obtain important results in diverse areas of research. We have a history of outsourcing and exploiting these results in pre-competitive projects and in partnerships with important national and international companies. Despite this, we are convinced that we will benefit from the experience and facilities available at INESC Porto, for example the preincubation of companies, technology transfer and the application of results to commerce. Therefore, we will benefit from creating synergies with other units at INESC Porto LA as well as in scientific areas that compliment its direction”.
“ISEP/IPP will also benefit from the name INESC Porto and from its national prominence. CISTER is already well-known as a privileged partner in its areas of expertise and along with ISEP/IPP can therefore benefit from INESC Porto’s interaction with less specialised publics, the general public and potential students and other companies”, the director concludes.
Source: BIP February 2011