The main objective of the AtlanticCrossing proposal is to develop a partnership between two higher education institutions, one Portuguese, Iscte – University Institute of Lisbon, and one from the United States of America, Bridgewater State University - BSU. This partnership is designed to be mutually beneficial, aiming to initiate the effort to develop joint specializations, postgraduate programs, and the awarding of joint academic degrees in the near future in scientific areas of mutual interest, such as Cybersecurity, Artificial Intelligence, and Language Technologies, Business Innovation, and Teaching-Learning. By collaborating, both institutions could leverage each other’s strengths and resources, enhancing the quality of education and research. The proposal also aims to develop skills for faculty and students through Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL), applied in Curricular Units (CUs) of undergraduate courses at both universities, focusing on the aforementioned scientific areas. The program includes activities throughout the academic year in a COIL environment and two short-term stays (1 week) for faculty and students: one organized at Iscte in mid-January, with the visit of BSU faculty and students, and the other at BSU, at the first week of June, reciprocally. We will coordinate joint and interdisciplinary research projects with an emphasis on Cybersecurity and Language Technologies. This will be conducted within the framework of project-based and applied research initiatives. Additionally, we will facilitate Iscte’s participation in BSU's annual Undergraduate Research Symposium, providing a platform for Iscte students to present their innovative results at this US event. In the field of Cybersecurity, we will organize comprehensive joint training sessions employing challenge-based and competitive environments, such as “Capture the Flag” and “Hackathon”. We will utilize BSU's CyberRange infrastructure - an exclusive resource in Massachusetts—...

Blockchain is a key technology for economy and society digital transition. According to  the World Economic Forum, 10% of global GDP will be stored in blockchains by 2027 and the World Trade Organization, citing a study by Gartner, estimates that by 2030 the use of blockchain technology could add $3 trillion to international trade. According to PwC "blockchain technologies can boost the global economy by $1.76 trillion by 2030" with the sectors that will benefit most being public administration, education, and health. Despite this huge opportunity, Portugal has yet to take advantage of it: according to the EU Blockchain Ecosystem Development report, in 2020 Portugal holds an average maturity at European level.  This Agenda brought together several blockchain organizations, creating a cluster of 24 Portuguese blockchain companies, 15 Research and Technology Organisations (RTO), 5 Public Entities, 2 Associations and 10 other Associated Partners, connected by business and technology, aiming to become global players and, thus, contributing  to a significant change in the specialization profile of the Portuguese economy, by investing on cutting-edge technology and hiring highly qualified personnel. 

POIESIS project brings together seven partners from across Europe, who will study the impact of research integrity issues and societal engagement practices on trust in science. As societal dependence on sound scientific research and responsible innovation has become increasingly visible, concerns about public trust and mistrust in science have simultaneously been mounting. This highlights the crucial importance of the cultural authority of science. The debate about societal trust in science is characterised by three intuitively appealing assumptions: - First, that trust depends on scientists’ capacity to demonstrate high standards of research integrity and ethics, and that breaches of research integrity will lead to mistrust; - Second, that citizens’ and civil society’s involvement in co-creating research agendas and content makes research more relevant and responsive to society and consequently strengthens trust; - Third, that institutions can foster integrity and societal integration by enabling and supporting researchers to act responsibly.  

Public engagement (PE) with S&T has become a crucial activity for academic and research organisations. While communication amongst academics, universities and the public is nothing new, it takes on added urgency in a world of global science and competition among universities for students, staff and funding. This, together with the requirements from governments and funders for institutions to address economic and social problems with research has resulted in mounting pressure on institutions to demonstrate the impact of research on society. Research on PE activities has mainly focused on individual scientists, with little attention paid to the institutional structures for communication. Our ongoing research MORE'PE project (2016-2020) has been pioneer in contributing to this gap by mapping communication at the level of research institutes (RIs) (meso-level) within academic institutions in 10 countries around the world. The proposed project 'OPEN - Organisational Public ENgagement' (2018-2021) aims continue this mapping at the central level of organisations. The study will be conducted in Portugal, the UK, Italy and Germany. The team brings together experts in large-scale surveys and the local knowledge to implement the surveys locally. This will be the first empirical work of such type. It will also have impacts at the political, institutional and societal levels by producing evidence that can inform institutional policies and practices to better engage society in research and generate indicators to measure institutional PE. This project is coordinated by Marta Entradas (PI), and received funding from the national research agency FCT (Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia) (240.000 euros) (Ref: PPTDC/COM-OUT/30022/2017).

MORE-PE 'Mobilising Resources for Public Engagement' aims to examine how research institutions are engaging society. The ultimate goal is to develop indicators for assessing public engagement at the institutional level. In particular, the project aims to assemble a global database of comparable data on the culture of public engagement at academic institutions, and includes collaborators in Europe, North and South America, and Asia. The team conducted national studies in Portugal, UK, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, the US, Brazil, Japan, and China, applying a questionnaire survey to a representative sample of research institutions in each country. The project brings together a team experienced in methodologies and large scale nationally and internationally representative sample surveys applied to PUS and team members in each member country. The project, coordinated by Marta Entradas (PI), is funded by the national research agency FCT (170.000 euros) (ref: PTDC/IVC-COM/0290/2014).