8 Exploratory Research Projects approved under the MIT Portugal Program

In 2019, the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) opened a competitive call to support exploratory research projects carried out by teams of Portuguese researchers and MIT. The call for proposals featured a total of 33 projects, 8 of which were recommended for funding by FCT under the scope of MIT Portugal Program. The projects will run at 6 Portuguese research units from all over the country in collaboration with 7 different departments at MIT.

According to Pedro Arezes, National Diretor of the MIT Portugal Program, “these projects can have a high impact for Portugal as a scalable living laboratory and innovation ecosystem for the development of new products and services with a global reach”. Arezes add that by funding these projects we “spearhead Portugal’s international competitiveness and innovative capacity in science and technology, and ultimately contribute to the growth of the Portuguese economy”.

Exploratory research projects are single year-long projects hosted at Portuguese Universities to address emergent research topics. Projects should be conceptualized through an integrated and multidisciplinary research design with a view towards piloting and scalability involving the National Research and Innovation System, MIT, or other public and private partners.

Projects approved:

1. Multi-risk Interactions Towards Resilient and Sustainable Cities
PT PI: Tiago Miguel dos Santos Ferreira – UMinho
MIT PI: John Ochsendorf – MIT Architecture

2. Cold-water corals: archives of intermediate waters oxygenation state?
PT PI: Lélia Maria Matos Branco – IPMA
MIT PI: Ed Boyle – MIT EAPS

3. Intelligent Automation in Precise Agriculture (AI+Green)
PT PI: Cristiano Premebida – ISR-UC
MIT PI: John W. Fisher III – MIT CSAIL

4. Deep learning for particle-laden viscoelastic flow modelling
PT PI: Célio Bruno Pinto Fernandes – UMinho
MIT PI: Gareth H. Mckinley – MIT MECHE

5. 3D Printing thermal blocks
PT PI: Ana Sofia Guimarães Teixeira – FEUP
MIT PI: Christoph Reinhart – MIT Architecture

6. Boosting full decarbonization for sustainable cities mobility through internal combustion engines fueled by pure ammonia
PT PI: Valter Bruno Reis e Silva – IPPortalegre
MIT PI: William H. Green, Jr. – MIT Chemical Engineering

7. Spectroscopic detection of bio-signatures in natural ice samples as a proxy of icy moons
PT PI: João Alfredo Vieira Canário -Técnico
MIT PI: Dava Newman – MIT AeroAstro

8. Turbine-generator set for stand-alone wave energy converters
PT PI: Luís Manuel de Carvalho Gato – Técnico
MIT PI: Paul D. Sclavounos – MIT MECHE

More details about the MPP projects here!

———————————————————————

Find out more about MPP research activities! 

Since launching in 2018, MPP2030 has opened 4 calls for projects. The research activities in the current phase of MPP fall into two categories: large-scale “flagship” research projects and small-scale “seed/exploratory” project.
Flagship projects are designed to integrate research topics across focus areas in a holistic fashion with a view towards piloting and scalability for maximum impact. In this particular call, the proposals needed to be led by companies and be built under a co-promotion structure in consortia with different partners. The 7 funding projects awarded a total of 15 M€, for the next 3 years.

Seed and exploratory projects are designed to foster novel, high-potential research ideas with small grants of $90K / 50K€ for the entire funding period of one year. These calls are opened annually (one in PT and another one at MIT), and thus far, there has been one in Portugal and two at MIT, accounting for a total of 35 projects distributed among the different strategic research areas.