The Department of Production and Systems at the School of Engineering of the University of Minho (UMinho) was delighted to host the Cross Cultural Engineering Project (CEP) event, organised by professors from Japan: Hiroshi Hasegawa, Manabu Ichikawa, Dai Watanabe and Dai Mochinaga, from the Shibaura Institute of Technology (SIT).

The aim of the event was to promote mutual learning and cultural exchange between students from Japan, Thailand and Portugal. Thai students participated with Professor Surapong Rattanakul from King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi. The CEP takes place in three regions — Japan, Southeast Asia and Europe — focusing, respectively, on academia-industry collaboration, ‘glocal’ issues and innovation creation.

CEP2025@UMinho took place in Braga, on the Gualtar campus, from 21 to 29 July, with 35 students organised into six multidisciplinary teams, focusing on value creation and innovation based on the CDSS method for digital transformation (DX).

At the closing ceremony, the projects were evaluated, with first place going to the project ‘UX and Innovation about SDGs’ and second place to the project ‘SADOYA’, linked to the SADOYA winery.

The School of Engineering and the Department of Production and Systems would like to thank the teachers, assistants, students and partner companies Vimagua and AGTêxtil who contributed to the success of the event!