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The Informatics cluster at INESC TEC
By Gabriel David*
The self-evaluation exercise that INESC TEC did for the FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia [Portuguese funding agency], regarding the evaluation of all Portuguese R&D units, was interesting on all levels. The consolidation of data on the activity conducted between 2008/2012 made it possible to reflect on the institution’s recent past, and as a result we managed to put into perspective our current reality and to detect evolution trends. The number of groups inside INESC TEC has grown to 12, not as a last minute arrangement for application purposes, but as a consequence of a lasting approximation effort. I was particularly pleased with the fact that the joint application strategy, for the next funding period (2015/2020), prevailed over the fragmented applications strategy, even though the latter most certainly guarantees a higher level of total funding. Therefore, INESC TEC is asserting its principles and model. The result is an R&D institution with about 760 collaborators, 240 if which have PhDs, involving the main Higher Education institutions in the region.
Furthermore, coherently presenting the institution outwardly has led to the identification of four clusters: Computer Science, Communications and Devices, Industrial Systems and Innovation, Power and Energy Systems. These clusters are fuzzy in the sense that there are groups that are somewhere in between clusters, but in the case of Informatics, the cluster includes four groups: CRACS – Centre for Research in Advanced Computing Systems, CSIG – Centre for Information and Computer Graphics Systems, HASLab – High Assurance Software Laboratory, and LIAAD – Laboratory of Artificial Intelligence and Decision Support. This cluster gathers the largest number of Informatics researchers in the country, with over 66 PhD holders, representing about a third of the INESC TEC community.
Analysing the keywords that characterise these four groups, it is possible to detect several convergences and complementarities.
Table 1 – Keywords of the groups in the Informatics cluster.
Therefore, it is natural that INESC TEC has taken the convergence and robust cooperation as a structural measure for the near future. This cooperation is already happening. For example, at the level of PhD programmes, the four units are directly involved in the MAP-i, a doctoral programme funded by the FCT [Portuguese funding agency], that gathers the Universities of Minho, Aveiro and Porto. In terms of common projects, there are several ongoing examples and others being prepared. However, there is still room to improve this joint work.
Other than the specific competences of CSIG, the Unit I’m coordinating that contributes to the Informatics cluster, there is a somewhat less obvious aspect that I would like to stress. Oftentimes, as a result of research, prototypes are developed that never get to be used in a real context due to the researchers’ lack of vocation and conditions to assure some of the maintenance aspects of the software which are indispensable for third parties to become involved. At CSIG we have a set of hired staff and infrastructures that make it possible for us to envision the possibility of following up the evolution of prototypes so that we can take them to a next maturing stage and eventually transfer technology. I hope that these skills allow us to fulfil, in the context of the Informatics cluster, INESC TEC’s strategic motto: FROM KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION TO SCIENCE-BASED INNOVATION.
*Manager of INESC TEC’s Information and Computer Graphics Systems Unit (USIG), which has recently been renamed as Centre for Information and Computer Graphics Systems (CSIG)
