Instituto Superior Técnico

Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) was created in 1911 from the division of the Instituto Industrial e Comercial de Lisboa, along with Instituto Superior do Comércio, currently Insituto Superior de Economia e Gestão. Alfredo Bensaúde, an engineer, was IST's first dean (1911–1922) and promoted a wide-range reform in the Portuguese higher technical education, including the first engineering courses at IST: mining, civil, mechanical, electrical, and chemical-industrial. IST's second dean was Duarte Pacheco (1927–1932), also an engineer, who was responsible for the construction of the campus at Alameda, designed by architect Porfírio Pardal Monteiro. Meanwhile, IST became part of the recently created Technical University of Lisbon. Throughout the following decade, the image of engineers from IST was projected into major engineering works, promoted by Duarte Pacheco, who was by the time Minister of Public Works.

Between 1952 and 1972, 12 study centres were established in Portugal, three of them at IST, in the fields of chemistry, geology and mineralogy, and electronics. These centres were responsible for promoting faculty training and scientific qualification through doctoral studies in universities and research centres abroad. In 1970, the minimum period for obtaining a bachelor's degree decreased from six to five years, and IST denoted a remarkable increase of the number of students. During this period, scientific research at IST increased significantly, through the creation of the Complexo Interdisciplinar which fasten together various autonomous research units, and contributes to transform IST in a reference school at European level. In the 1990s, new degrees were created in cutting-edge engineering areas, including master and doctoral programmes. In 2001, IST inaugurated a new campus in the municipality of Oeiras, located in Taguspark, the first Portuguese science and technology park, which is home for more than 120 technology-based companies. In the academic year of 2006-2007, the Declaration of Bologna was successfully implemented for all IST programmes, aiming the establishment of a European Education Area to make Europe a competitive knowledge-based economy. Today IST is involved with several of Portugal's R&D&I and technology transfer institutions and offers a vast number of degrees in science and engineering areas, at undergraduate, master and doctoral levels. IST is also part of several networks and international programmes to promote student mobility, both at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Through a large number of agreements with other institutions worldwide, it participates in more than 20 Dual Master programmes, and joint PhD programmes with MIT, CMU, UT-Austin and EPFL.

As of 2019, IST offers undergraduate and graduate studies in:

• Aerospace Engineering
• Applied Mathematics and Computation
• Architecture
• Biological Engineering
• Biomedical Engineering
• Chemical Engineering
• Civil Engineering
• Telecommunications and Information Networks Engineering
• Electrical and Computer Engineering
• Electronics Engineering
• Environmental Engineering
• Geological and Mining Engineering
• Industrial Engineering and Management
• Information Systems and Computer Engineering
• Materials Engineering
• Mechanical Engineering
• Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering
• Physics Engineering

IST is also actively involved in several networks and international programs to promote student mobility, both at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Through a large number of agreements with other institutions worldwide, IST participates in more than 20 Dual Master programs, and joint PhD programs with MIT, CMU, UT-Austin, and EPFL.

IST is a member of several academic and scientific consortiums and associations, including:

• TIME association (Top Industrial Managers for Europe) for researchers and student exchanges and double-degree in Europe. T.I.M.E. Coordinator is Prof. José Santos-Victor.
• CLUSTER (Consortium Linking Universities of Science and Technology for Education and Research), a network of leading European Universities of Technology; their fundamental missions are advanced research and higher education of engineers, scientists and architects.[5]
• Conference of European Schools for Advanced Engineering Education and Research (CESAER), a non-profit association of leading engineering universities in Europe and of Partnership of a European Group of Aeronautics and Space Universities (PEGASUS).

IST is among the most productive engineering schools in Europe, according to a 2019 ranking.[6]

Instituto Superior Técnico - World's TOP 50 Eng Univ 2018

Instituto Superior Técnico. World's 8th Best Civil Eng Univ 2017

North tower at Alameda campus

Currently IST has three campi:

• Alameda campus, located in the centre of Lisbon, completed in 1929.
• Taguspark campus, located in Oeiras, opened in 2000.
• IST Tecnológico e Nuclear campus, the former Instituto Tecnológico Nuclear, located in Loures, transferred to IST in 2011.

IST benefits from an IBM supercomputer built in 2007, which is one of the most powerful in Portugal (1.6 TFLOPS as of 2007).[7]

IST alumni have held prominent positions in both the private and public sectors of Portuguese society, including several businesspeople, politicians, three Prime Ministers of Portugal, one of which became Secretary-General of the United Nations.

Statue with initiatic purposes Alameda campus

• Alfredo Nobre da Costa, Prime Minister of Portugal (1978), Minister for Industry and Technology (1975–76)
• Alberto Romão Dias, former State Secretary for Higher Education, university professor, chemical-industrial engineering (1964-2007)
• Ângelo Correia, politician and business administrator, chemical-industrial engineering (1968)
• António Câmara, founder and CEO of YDreams, Prémio Pessoa winner, researcher and professor at the Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, civil engineering
• António Guterres, former Prime Minister of Portugal; former president of the Socialist International and former United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees; current Secretary-General of the United Nations, electrical engineering (1971)
• João J. R. Fraústo da Silva, former Minister for Education (1982–83)
• João de Deus Pinheiro, politician, Minister of Education, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Member of the European Parliament, European Commissioner, rector, university professor, chemical-industrial engineering (1970)
• João Pavão Martins, founder of SISCOG, full professor of Computer Science and Engineering at IST, mechanical engineering (1976) (later got a master's degree in computer science and a PhD in Artificial intelligence from State University of New York at Buffalo).
• José Manuel Bento dos Santos, businessman, trader, metals broker, cook, gastronomer, chemical-industrial engineering.
• José Manuel Tribolet, full professor of Information Systems, PhD from MIT, co-founder and chairman of INESC-ID, electrical engineering (1971).
• Luis Veiga da Cunha, Minister for Education (1979–80)
• Manuela M. Veloso, researcher in robotics, professor at Carnegie Mellon University
• Maria de Lurdes Pintasilgo, first woman to serve as Prime Minister of Portugal, chemical-industrial engineering (1953)
• Mariano Gago, Minister for Science, Technology and Higher Education, electrical engineering (1960)
• Nuno Maulide, full professor of organic chemistry at the University of Vienna at the age of 33 (2013) and Austria's scientist of the year (2018)
• Pedro Domingos, researcher in machine learning, professor at University of Washington, author of The Master Algorithm
• Pepetela, Angolan writer, sociology professor (did not graduate)
• Paulo Branco, film producer and distributor, chemical engineering (did not graduate)
• Raul Pires Ferreira Chaves, inventor, former Director of Public Works in Cape Verde and Portuguese Guinea, former president of Associação Industrial, Comercial e Agrícola da Guiné
• Stephan Morais, first Portuguese to be nominated a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, civil engineering (1996).
• Vasco Joaquim Rocha Vieira, General and Governor of Macao, civil engineering

• University of Lisbon
• Rádio Zero
• FenixEdu
• Air Cargo Challenge

• Instituto Superior Técnico Home Page
• Universidade de Lisboa Home Page
• Mobility and International Cooperation Office (NMCI)
• "Study at IST"
• Rádio Zero Instituto Superior Técnico Radio
• Diferencial Instituto Superior Técnico Newspaper
• CinemaParaIST Instituto Superior Técnico Film Club
• Projecto FST Instituto Superior Técnico Formula Student Team