Over the next five years, the UT Austin Portugal Programme will be co-directed by Professors Rui Oliveira, from the Department of Informatics at the School of Engineering of the University of Minho (EEUM), and Rute André, from the University of Aveiro. Rui Oliveira – who is also a researcher at INESC TEC’s UMinho Centre – has been co-leading this Programme since 2018.

The 4th phase of the scientific-technological partnership between Portugal – which brings together universities, companies, associations and government bodies – and the University of Texas at Austin (USA) will focus on the areas of clean energy, advanced computing, nanotechnology and space-Earth technologies.

To ensure that the scientific areas of focus generate innovation and business opportunities that benefit the transatlantic partnership, the Programme has promoted, since its inception, a set of commercialisation and technological entrepreneurship support activities, which include periods of immersion for researchers and entrepreneurs from Portugal in the Austin ecosystem.

Rui Oliveira is an associate professor at EEUM and a researcher at INESC TEC‘s UMinho Centre. He completed his PhD at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Switzerland), specialising in reliable and large-scale computer systems. He is the director of INESC TEC, as well as a member of the board of directors of the National Centre for Advanced Computing and the board of directors of EuroHPC JU.