Personal merit leads us against the tide
Writing this article without referring to Portugal’s financial difficulties is unthinkable this month, the subject is inescapable.
However, it is important to keep things in perspective. Although the crisis is real, we will only recover by working through this cycle. This means work, effort, organisation and rationality along with boldness, taking risks and being aware of the factors that will ensure sustainability.
Predictions stated that 2010 would be a difficult year, but let us take a look at INESC Porto actual performance. According to the calculations, we can confirm notable growth in the size of the Associate Laboratory, in the number of projects and in the income received.
In 2010, INESC Porto contracted over 38% more projects than in 2009: this resulted in an increase of 47% in income which translates to an increase of more than two million Euros from projects when compared to the previous year.
It is important to highlight that R&D Services and Consulting have played a very important role in this increase; 42% of the income from projects comes from direct science and technology contracts with companies.
Furthermore, INESC Porto’s international activity has also registered growth which corresponds to an invoice volume of 30%.
This means that in these two strategically important areas INESC Porto has shown robustness both in its capacity to transfer technology to companies and in its capacity to secure a strong international presence.
When facing the fluctuations in public funding that affect even competitive research programmes, these two pre-defined objectives have made INESC Porto less dependent on these funds than other institutions in Portugal. Just 14% of INESC Porto’s direct income from projects originates from FCT programmes (Programmes from the Foundation for Science and Technology).
Therefore, the two strategies, internationalisation and transforming knowledge into value, continue to be relevant and will allow us to meet the crisis with a confidence based on facts.