The Universidade de Aveiro (UA), Portugal, is an active and cutting-edge academic institution widely recognized for its scientific achievements, innovative educational practices, and collaboration with society, contributing to more sustainable communities. UA has become one of the most dynamic and innovative universities in the country, considered one of the best universities of the Times Higher Education Young University Rankings for the world’s universities aged 50 years or under.
UA has now around 13700 students distributed by 16 Academic Departments and 4 Polytechnic Schools which work together in an inter-disciplinary manner according to their academic and research affinities. Its organisation and matrix structure stimulates knowledge exchange and cross-contamination between fields, promoting a useful proximity between teaching and research.
UA is a privileged partner for companies and other national and international organisations with which the University cooperates in numerous projects and for which it provides important services. In 2019, 628 research and technology transfer projects have been active in UA. From these, 134 had or have international collaborations, 40 funded by ERASMUS+ and 48 by Horizon 2020. Among these projects we should refer three ongoing ERC Grants and three more were approved for funding. The projects are developed under the 20 research centres hosted by UA which act in many different scientific areas. 95% of these research centres have been classified as Very Good or Excellent in the last evaluation process promoted by the Portuguese national funding agency, FCT.
The UA integrates polytechnic schools particularly devoted to vocational teaching, namely on tourism and hospitality, providing valuable know-how to the successful accomplishment of the Fairfood project.
