The UMinho Scientific Research Initiation Award 2023 ceremony took place on 12 December at the Gualtar campus in Braga.

Twenty-seven undergraduate and first-year integrated master’s students have been developing their scientific projects over the last few months, involved in teams of recognised merit at UMinho, and then presented their results in turn. There were three parallel sessions, which were opened by the managers of the Prize – the Vice-Rector for Education and Academic Mobility, Filomena Soares, and the Pro-Rector for Scientific Projects and Research Management, Sandra Paiva, via Zoom.

Among the topics covered were, for example, the digitalisation of competitive justice, facial recognition techniques, a drug delivery system in cancer therapy, the emotional competence of university students, patterns in angling, the energy of cosmic showers, the impact of industrial schools and new materials for light detectors.

At 5.30pm, there was a talk by Graça Coelho, Managing Director of Cachapuz Bilanciai Group. The winners of the fourth edition of the UMinho Prize for Initiation in Scientific Research were announced at 5.45pm, and the closing session was led by the Vice-Rector for Research and Innovation, Eugénio Campos Ferreira.

This year there were 17 winning students, including four from the School of Engineering, with the following projects:

– Inês Catarina da Silva Oliveira, with the project “Improving biomethane production by adding conductive nanomaterials”, developed at CEB;

– Duarte Lima Ferreira, with the project “Use of industrial glass waste in the production of cementitious materials with low CO2 content as a contribution to the circular economy”, developed at CTAC;

– Guilherme Sousa Silva Martins, with the project “Digital transformation: a case study”, developed at ALGORITMI;

– João Pedro de Vasconcelos Torres, with the project “A multi-objective optimisation approach for polymer single screw extruder design”, developed at IPC.

SOURCE: UMinho