IBM opened at FEUP first Center of Advanced Studies in Portugal

IBM and the University of Porto inaugurated, on April 27, the first Center of Advanced Studies (CAS) in Portugal, located on the campus of the College of Engineering (FEUP).

The IBM CAS in Portugal is the ninth research center of IBM in Europe and the twentieth in the world, applied research oriented in Engineering, Science and Management Services (SSME).

Dedicated to promote collaboration between universities, industry, government, and research laboratories of IBM (mainly in Zurich and Almaden, USA), CAS Portugal already has INESC Porto, INEGI and IDMEC as partners.

In the future, depending on the progress of the project, it is intended that CAS Portugal may arise as a platform for collaboration with other academic institutions and research institutions, and businesses.

Projects at CAS Portugal will be guided by five core areas:
SSME - Service Science Management and Engineering (Management Science and Services)
SOA - Services Oriented Architecture
Cloud Computing / Virtualization
BPM - Business Process Modelling
K-12 - Secondary School Education

The opening ceremony was conducted by José Joaquim Oliveira, chairman of IBM Portuguesa, José Marques dos Santos, Rector of the University of Porto and Carlos Costa, Director of FEUP.

The ceremony counted also with Hisham El-Shishiny, Global Head of CAS at IBM with a presentation on the strategy of the CAS in the world and Diem Ho, Director of University Relations at IBM EMEA (Europe, Middle East & Africa), with a presentation on SSME. The Minister for Science, Technology and Higher Education, Jose Mariano Gago, made the closing ceremony, followed by a Port of Honour.