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Since its inception 19 years ago as an innovative partnership involving Portuguese universities, research organizations, and businesses, the MIT-Portugal Program (MPP) has accomplished an impressive array of successes — from facilitating 47 entrepreneurial spinoffs and financing over 220 collaborative projects between MIT and Portuguese investigators to mentoring a generation of remarkable scholars on both sides of the Atlantic.

In March, after nearly two decades of collaboration, MIT and the Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation (FCT) finalized an accord that officially marks the onset of the program’s next phase. Extending through 2030, MPP’s Phase 4 will back ongoing investigation into inventive concepts and solutions in disciplines ranging from artificial intelligence and nanotechnology to climate change — taking place both on the MIT grounds and with collaborators throughout Portugal.

“One of the benefits of having a program that has lasted this long is that we are quite acquainted with each other at this stage. Throughout the years, we’ve understood each other’s systems, strengths, and shortcomings, which has enabled us to create a synergy that wouldn’t have been possible had we collaborated for a shorter duration,” asserts Douglas Hart, MIT’s mechanical engineering professor and MPP co-director.

Hart and John Hansman, the T. Wilson Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT and MPP co-director, are enthusiastic about advancing the program’s current research initiatives while introducing new focal points identified by MIT and FCT. Known as the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia in Portugal, FCT is the national public entity that supports research in science, technology, and innovation under Portugal’s Ministry of Education, Science and Innovation.

“Over the last two decades, our partnership with MIT has established a foundation of trust that has encouraged cooperation among researchers and the creation of projects with substantial scientific significance and contributions to the Portuguese economy,” states Fernando Alexandre, Portugal’s minister for education, science, and innovation. “In this new phase of our collaboration, lasting from 2025 to 2030, we anticipate even greater ambition and influence — elevating Portuguese science and its capacity to transform the economy and enhance our society to even higher levels, while aiding in the resolution of challenges we confront in areas like climate change and the oceans, digitalization, and space.”

“Global collaborations like the MIT-Portugal Program are crucial to MIT’s mission of research, education, and service. I’m excited to witness the program transition into its next phase,” remarks MIT President Sally Kornbluth. “MPP provides our faculty and students opportunities to operate in unique research settings where they not only uncover new discoveries and acquire new methodologies but also aid in resolving pressing local and global issues. MPP’s endeavors in the domain of ocean science and climate exemplify how international partnerships like this can help address significant human challenges.”

Sharing MIT’s commitment to academic independence and excellence, Kornbluth adds, “the institutions and scholars we collaborate with through MPP augment MIT’s ability to fulfill its mission, allowing us to pursue the rigorous standards of intellectual and creative distinction that make MIT a hub of innovation and a global leader in scientific discovery.”

The hallmark of an effective international collaboration, MPP has remained faithful to its mission and persisted in yielding results here in the U.S. and in Portugal for nearly two decades — thriving amid numerous changes in the political, social, and economic scenarios. The multifaceted program includes an annual research conference and educational summits such as an Innovation Workshop at MIT each June and a Marine Robotics Summer School in the Azores in July, along with student and faculty exchanges that encourage collaborative research. During the third phase of the program alone, 59 MIT students and 53 faculty and researchers visited Portugal, while MIT welcomed 131 students and 49 faculty and researchers from Portuguese universities and various institutions.

In each roughly five-year phase, MPP scholars concentrate on a few essential research domains. For Phase 3, MPP fostered innovative research in four strategic sectors: climate science and climate change; Earth systems: oceans to near space; digital transformation in manufacturing; and sustainable cities. Within these broad categories, MIT and FCT researchers collaborated on numerous small-scale projects as well as several major “flagship” initiatives, including the development of Portugal’s CubeSat satellite, a partnership between MPP and several Portuguese universities and firms that marked the nation’s second satellite launch and the first in 30 years.

While endeavors in the Phase 3 fields will persist throughout Phase 4, researchers will also shift their focus to four additional topics: chips/nanotechnology, energy (a previous focus in Phase 2), artificial intelligence, and space.

“We are broadening the scope for additional collaboration areas,” remarks Hansman.

Alongside an emphasis on distinct subjects, each phase has highlighted various dimensions of MPP’s mission to differing extents. While Phase 3 prioritized collaborative research over educational exchanges and entrepreneurship, those two aspects will receive more emphasis under the Phase 4 agreement, as Hart indicated.

“We have authorization in Phase 4 to bring several Portuguese students over, and our principal investigators will benefit from close partnerships with Portuguese researchers,” he states.

The durability of MPP and the recent initiation of Phase 4 serve as evidence of the program’s significance. The program has contributed to the educational, technological, and economic advancements Portugal has achieved over the last two decades, as well.

“The Portugal of today is remarkably more robust than the Portugal of 20 years ago, and many of the areas where they are stronger have been influenced by the program,” asserts Hansman, particularly highlighting sustainable cities and “green” energy. “While we can’t claim direct credit, we’ve played a part in Portugal’s progress.”

Since MPP’s commencement, Hart adds, “Portugal has become significantly more entrepreneurial. A multitude of new start-up companies is emerging from Portuguese universities now compared to the past.”

A recent assessment of MPP and FCT’s other U.S. partnerships underscored numerous positive outcomes. The report highlighted that collaborations with MIT and other U.S. universities have bolstered Portuguese research capabilities and facilitated organizational enhancements in the national R&D landscape, while granting Portuguese universities and companies opportunities to partake in intricate projects that would have been challenging to tackle independently.

Concerning MIT specifically, the report noted that MPP’s ongoing collaboration has led to the establishment of enduring doctoral programs and pointed to a notable transformation within Portugal’s educational ecosystem toward globally standardized criteria. MPP, it indicated, has supported the education of 198 Portuguese PhDs.

Portugal’s universities, students, and companies are not the sole beneficiaries of the research, networks, and economic activities generated by MPP. MPP also provides unique advantages to MIT, as well as to the wider U.S. science and research community. Among the program’s recurring themes over the years, for instance, is a “common interest in the Atlantic,” Hansman notes.

This summer, Faial Island in the Azores will host MPP’s fifth annual Marine Robotics Summer School, a two-week course open to 12 Portuguese Master’s and first-year PhD students.

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students and 12 MIT higher-level undergraduates and graduate scholars. The class, which encompasses lectures by MIT and Portuguese educators along with various researchers, workshops, laboratories, and practical experiences, “is perpetually my favorite,” stated Hart.

“I get the chance to collaborate with some of the finest researchers in the world there, alongside some of the leading students emerging from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, MIT, and Portugal,” he mentions, highlighting that some of his former Marine Robotics Summer School attendees have joined MIT and subsequently progressed to become professors in marine science.

“Thus, it’s been thrilling to observe the development of students emerging from that program, certainly a beneficial influence,” Hart expresses.

MPP offers unparalleled opportunities for marine research due to the distinctive marine facilities located in Portugal, encompassing not only the open ocean near the Azores but also the deep-water port in Lisbon and a Portuguese Naval facility just south of the city, which is accessible for collaborative research by global scientists. Similar to MIT, universities in Portugal are also profoundly committed to climate change research — a domain closely linked to ocean systems.

“The global collaboration has permitted us to evaluate and further refine our research prototypes in diverse aquaculture environments in both the US and Portugal while leveraging the unique expertise of our Portuguese faculty partner Dr. Ricardo Calado from the University of Aveiro and our industry partners,” asserts Stefanie Mueller, the TIBCO Career Development Associate Professor in MIT’s departments of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Mechanical Engineering, and head of the Human-Computer Interaction Group at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab.

Mueller points out the efforts of MIT mechanical engineering PhD candidate Charlene Xia, a participant in the Marine Robotics Summer School, whose research focuses on creating an affordable system to monitor the microbiome of seaweed farms and prevent the transmission of harmful bacteria associated with rising ocean temperatures. Besides partaking in the summer school as a student, Xia made a return to the Azores for two additional years as a teaching assistant.

“The MIT-Portugal Program has been instrumental in enabling our research on monitoring the aquatic microbiome for possible disease outbreaks,” Mueller states.

As MPP transitions into its next stage, Hart and Hansman remain hopeful about the program’s ongoing success across both sides of the Atlantic and are contemplating expanding its influence moving forward.

“I believe, at this juncture, the research is progressing remarkably well, and we’ve established numerous connections. One of our objectives is to broaden not just the science of the program, but the groups involved,” Hart notes, mentioning that MPP could have a more significant presence in technical domains like AI and micro-nano manufacturing, alongside social sciences and the humanities.

“We aspire to engage many more individuals and newcomers here at MIT, as well as in Portugal,” he continues, “to reach a broader segment of the population.”

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