CMU Portugal Program Announces $23M Funding for R&D Projects
A new round of research and development funding has been announced by CMU Portugal. More than $23 million will go to new projects that partner Portuguese companies with research institutions including Carnegie Mellon University.
CMU Portugal is a partnership between Carnegie Mellon and the Government of Portugal and encourages collaboration between academia and industry in Portugal's innovation economy. Faculty and students work in a dynamic ecosystem that brings together industry, government and academia to solve real problems and elevate economic growth.
In this latest round of funding, projects cover the areas of data science and engineering; artificial intelligence and machine learning; design and engineering applied to social problems; addressing problems in the health sectors; forest fire-prevention; data management; mobility; and language technologies.
These projects represent a total investment of $23 million by Portugal, of which $12.54 million come from the European COMPETE 2020 Program and from the Portugal Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT); $6.6 million are through the CMU Portugal Program at CMU; and $3.85 million from the participating Portuguese ICT companies.
Top information and communication technology (ICT) companies in Portugal will lead all projects in partnership with 13 research groups from Portuguese universities and eight CMU departments. The companies include the CMU Portugal Program startup Feedzai, Compta, Farfetch, First Solutions, Glintt, GLSMED Learning Health, Ingeniarius, Outsystems, Unbabel and Mobileum.
The call for these Large-Scale Collaborative Research Projects launched in May 2019 by Portugal's ANI (Agência Nacional de Inovação) with an initial plan to fund three to four projects. Recognizing the high quality of the 17 proposals submitted, the evaluation panel recommended 10 projects for funding during the next three years.
"It was an excellent surprise to see the number of applications, but above all the high quality and number of approved projects," said Nuno Nunes and Rodrigo Rodrigues, national co-directors of the CMU Portugal Program. "We have some of the best national companies involved in the program over the next three years, which makes us extremely excited about the results we can achieve through these partnerships."
José M. F. Moura is director of the CMU Portugal Program at CMU.
"These new projects also reflect CMU Portugal's commitment to foster the cooperation between Portuguese university researchers and Portuguese companies, promoting innovation and technology development with direct impact in the competitiveness of Portuguese companies in the global market," Moura said.
This call was launched by Compete 2020, ANI and FCT under the "Go Portugal — Global Science and Technology Partnerships Portugal" sponsored by the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Higher Education, an initiative that includes other international partnerships. The competition's competitiveness resulted in a total of 25 selected projects, 10 of which within the CMU Portugal Program framework, whose funding represented a very significant financial commitment on behalf of the Portuguese Government.