Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS wishes to motivate and award research of practical utility through the attribution of Prizes and Distinctions to students and researchers that contribute to the philosophy behind the FhP-AICOS vision of ‘Proposing Futures. Impacting lives.’ and its mission to create ‘Remarkable Technology, Easy to Use.’
The Fraunhofer Portugal Challenge is an idea contest promoted by Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS with the objective of motivating and rewarding research of practical utility, through the attribution of scientific prizes to MSc students and researchers from Portuguese higher education institutions in the scientific areas of: Human-Centred Design; Artificial Intelligence; and Cyber-physical systems.
The Challenge includes two Scientific Prizes categories:
a) Master Thesis Award: the best ideas presented by MSc students and researchers that were developed having ‘Research of Practical Utility’ in mind and are based on graduation theses;
b) Student Award: the best ideas presented by MSc students, that do not need to be associated with any scientific work (e.g. master thesis).
The Challenge is open to all individual applicants (hereafter the ‘Participant’) that are/were MSc students and researchers in Portuguese higher education institutions such as Universities or Polytechnic Institutes, developing their research activity ideally within the Scientific Areas.
Note: Individual applicants with past or present collaboration with Fraunhofer Portugal or with its founding associates, research centres or project partners, are not eligible for participation in the Challenge. This includes past or present employees, thesis students, scholarship students, members of the Jury and their respective direct family.
Master Thesis Award
The submitted ideas must be based on a MSc thesis developed by the Participant resulting in an academic degree from a Portuguese higher education institution.
The ideas must be based on a thesis concluded and graded in the academic year of 2022/2023, that was not submitted in previous editions of the Challenge, or that has been concluded, defended and graded or will be defended and graded in the academic year of 2023/2024, and provided that it has not been submitted in previous editions of the Challenge, nor any other competition sponsored by FhP-AICOS.
In case the submitted idea has not yet been defended and graded, the Participant must submit a statement in support from the thesis supervisor upon submission of the idea, in the 1st Round.
Student Award – Special Rules
The submitted ideas must be aligned with the Scientific Areas and must be developed having “Research of Practical Utility” in mind. The submitted ideas do not need to be associated with any scientific work (e.g. master thesis).
The Master Thesis Award will follow the chronogram below, divided into three rounds:
1st Round:
17/Jun/2024: beginning of the idea submission period;
21/Jul/2024: end of the idea submission period;
05/Aug/2024: announcement of the 1st round results.
2nd Round:
05/Aug/2024: beginning of the additional documentation submission period;
15/Aug/2024: end of the additional documentation submission period;
02/Sep/2024: announcement of the 2nd round results (up to 10 finalists).
3rd Round:
25/Sep/2024: public presentation of the best 2nd round results; announcement of the 3rd round results (Fraunhofer Portugal Challenge Closing Event).
The Student Award will follow the chronogram:
17/Jun/2024: beginning of the idea submission period;
21/Jul/2024: end of the idea submission period;
Until 05/Sep/2024: announcement of the results and winning idea;
Until 09/Sep/2024: beginning of the mentoring work;
25/Sep/2024: public presentation of the winning idea and work developed/to be developed within the mentorship (Fraunhofer Portugal Challenge Closing Event).
Meet the people who are part of this year's jury panel:
Liliana Ferreira
Liliana Ferreira is the director of Fraunhofer Portugal and Professor at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto. Liliana Ferreira holds a PhD in Informatics Engineering from the University of Aveiro, and has worked as a researcher and guest researcher in several research groups as Philips Research Eindhoven,the Institute of Electronics and Telematics Engineering of Aveiro, IBM Research and Development, Ubiquitous Knowledge Lab of the Technical University of Darmstadt and in the Linguistic Department of the University of Tübingen. Her main research activities are in the area of Human Language Technologies, Information Extraction, Medical Knowledge Representation, and Health Informatics.
Waldir Júnior
Waldir Júnior, President of the Scientific Board of Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS, holds a PhD degree (’14) in Telecommunications from Universidades do Minho, Aveiro and Porto, Portugal, with Master (’08) and Bachelor (’05) degrees in Computer Science from Universidade Federal do Pará and Universidade da Amazônia, Brazil. Currently, he is Senior Scientist and Innovation Lead for Digital Farming at Fraunhofer Portugal Research Center for Assistive Information and Communication Solutions (FhP-AICOS). His work, research interests, and publications are in the field of Wireless Adhoc, Mesh, Social-aware, Cooperative, Opportunistic, Information-Centric, and Software-Defined Networking and Routing as well as Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D), Digital Services/Tools for Inclusion and Empowerment, Network Deployment in Challenged/Underserved Areas, (Industrial) Internet of Things (I/IoT), Smart Cities, Digital Farming, and Industry 4.0.
Fazel Ansari
Univ.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil Fazel Ansari is Full Professor of Data-driven Maintenance Management and Chair of Production and Maintenance Management at the Faculty of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Technische Universität Wien (TU Wien), Austria. He has been serving in various position at the Fraunhofer Austria Research GmbH since 2017, lately as head of strategic projects and member of the board of management at the Center for Sustainable Production and Logistics. Fazel Ansari obtained his Habilitation degree in Industrial Engineering at the TU Wien, his summa cum laude PhD in computer science from the University of Siegen, Germany, in the specialization of knowledge-based systems and knowledge management, and a M.Sc. degree in Mechatronics from University of Siegen. Fazel Ansari is an interdisciplinary researcher conducting research and teaching at the intersection of AI, industrial engineering and production management. Prof. Ansari is a senior IEEE member and Associate Member of International Academy of Production Engineering (CIRP), as well as member of IFAC and International Association of Learning Factories (IALF). He also serves as associate editor of Journal of Production and Manufacturing Research. Lately, he chairs the 18th IFAC Symposium on Information Control Problems in Manufacturing (INCOM 2024) that will be held in Vienna in August 2024.
João José Ferreira
Dean Master of Technological Innovation and Entrepreneurship – FEUP - Universidade do Porto; Researcher – INESC Porto; PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering – FEUP - Universidade do Porto.
Stefanie Goetz
Administrative Director of Fraunhofer Portugal, Head of Shared Services; Counsel for Corporate, IP and Employment Law; MBA student at Católica Porto Business School.
Manuel Monteiro
Group Leader for Business Development at Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS; MSc in Electrical and Computers Engineering from FEUP; Innovation Consultant.
Cristiana Braga
Co-Founder and CPO of Peeking Window; Researcher at Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS; Master in Services Engineering and Management from FEUP; 2nd Place Award Winner of 2 Innovation Prizes in 2023.
Filipe Soares
Co-Founder, CEO, and AI Entrepreneur of Peeking Window; Senior Researcher at Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS; PhD with the highest honors in Computer Science and Engineering (University of Beira Interior); 2nd Place Award Winner of 2 Innovation Prizes in 2023.
Rui Castro
CEO at Backslash Code; Research Management Group Leader at Fraunhofer Portugal; MSc in Digital Communication Systems and Technologies (Chalmers University of Technology).
Nino Rocha
CTO at Backslash Code; Researcher at Fraunhofer Portugal; MSc in Network and Computer Systems Engineering, Software Engineering and Communication Networks (Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto).
Vinicius Carvalho
CE at Backslash Code; Researcher at Fraunhofer Portugal; MSc in Software Engineering.
Vitor Rolla
Senior Researcher at Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS; PhD in Informatics Engineering (University of Coimbra); Entrepreneur.
Denise Branco
Business Development Manager at Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS; PhD in Translation and Terminology (UA and FSCH-UNL); Entrepreneur.
For the category Master Thesis Award, the Fraunhofer Portugal Challenge will award a total of €6.000 (six thousand Euros) in scientific prizes, divided into three placements (1st, 2nd and 3rd Prize).
For the category Student Award, the Jury will consider awarding one scientific prize to the best idea. The prize consists of mentoring - provided by specialists from FhP-AICOS - and a prize in the total amount of €3,000.00 (three thousand Euros). The mentoring period, up to a maximum of 6 months, will be determined according to the student's availability and the work plan defined with the FhP-AICOS experts.
For more specific informations, please consult the Fraunhofer Portugal Challenge 2024 - Terms & Conditions and the Fraunhofer Portugal Challenge 2024 - Contest Presentation. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us.
Fraunhofer Portugal Challenge