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On May 10, 2010, at the Macau Scientific and Cultural Centre, Rua da Junqueira 30, Lisbon, between 9:00 and 17:45, the Forum for the Information Society – Internet of the Future will take place (see Forum Program (in Portuguese)). The Forum is open to all interested parties.

The main objective of this Forum, organized by the Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC) with the support of Profs. Joao de Barros (Carnegie Mellon – Portugal Program, IT and FEUP) and Rui Aguiar (IT, U. Aveiro), is to get together expertise in strategic areas for the development of Future Internet, a subject on which there has been since 2006 a special national support, in particular within the international partnership programs of Portugal with some of the world leading institutions but also within other programs, to discuss the opportunities opening up in Future Internet technologies, applications and services.

As part of the initiatives taken in the 1st e-Skills European Week, the Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC) signed on 9 March 2010, in the School of Education of the Polytechnic Institute of Santarém, two new protocols to pursue the implementation of the ICT Academies in Higher Education Institutions initiative launched in 2007. These protocols are designed to foster in institutions of higher education opportunities for professional training in areas of Information and Communication Technology (ICT).

The Carnegie Mellon – Portugal Program hosts on February 24, 2010, at Pavilhão do Conhecimento Ciência Viva, Parque das Nações, Lisbon, the Innovation Forum on Services and Technologies for Interactive Media (NET-STIM). The goal of this event is to prepare the launching of a Thematic Network on these topics in order to gather the expertise of Portuguese research centers, private companies and government agencies with the objective of creating in Portugal innovation cluster in advanced services and technologies for interactive media.

The Carnegie Mellon – Portugal Program hosts on February 23, 2010, at Forum Telecom, Picoas, Lisbon, the Innovation Forum on Future Internet Technologies and Services (NET-FIT). The goal of this event is to prepare the launching of a Thematic Network on these topics in order to gather the expertise of Portuguese research centers, private companies and government agencies with the objective of placing Portugal at the forefront of innovation in key technologies and services for the Future Internet.

The Carnegie Mellon – Portugal Program hosts on February 22, 2010, at the University of Coimbra Auditorium, Coimbra, the Innovation Network on Security and Critical Infrastructure Protection (NET-SCIP). The goal of this event is to prepare the launching of a Thematic Network, joining together the expertise of Portuguese research centers, private companies and government agencies for developing in Portugal comparative advantages technologies and services for network security and critical infrastructures protection.

In the 23rd February 2010, at the auditorium of the High School D. Dinis in Lisbon, there will be a meeting to promote the initiative IBERCIVIS – Your Computer Doing Science which was launched in Portugal on the 30th July 2009 (see Initiative IBERCIVIS: Citizens can donate their computer time to science). This Volunteer Computing initiative for scientific purposes conducted in cooperation with Spain welcomes the participation of citizens in a scientific research directly and in real time, offereing the processing time of their computers, in particular when they are not being used, to perform scientific computing.

The Web portal of CGD – Caixa Geral de Depósitos (http://www.cgd.pt) has been completely remodeled and now fully complies with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG1.0) established by the W3C – World Wide Web Consortium. The Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC) helped the CGD services to assure compliance with the accessibility guidelines through its team ACCESS, and CGD used the automatic validation tool of evaluation of the satisfaction of accessibility guidelines developed that UMIC – the eXaminator (text in portuguese) – and adopted the Dynamic Accessibility Certification Logo of UMIC (text in Portuguese) that provides an updated diagnostic of the accessibility of the whole portal.

On September 4, 2009, in a ceremony held at the University of Algarve chaired by the Minister for Science, Technology and Higher Education, the President of the Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC) and the Rector of the University of Algarve signed a protocol regarding the support by UMIC of 1.6 million euros for an initial investment in the medical school whose classes will started on September 8, 2009. The funding now provided is intended for educational content, infrastructure, hardware, and related human resources.

On August 29, 2009, the Ministers CPLP – Community of Portuguese Language Countries responsible for science and technology and for higher education met in Lisbon.

Portugal has the Presidency of the CPLP this year and prepared an agenda which includes the discussion of a Portuguese proposal to create a, in a completely innovative approach, a UNESCO Centre for advanced training in science within the institutions of the CPL (text of the declaration in Portuguese) , combining the high-level scientific training, namely through PhD programs, with the training for the social responsibility of scientists, the public communication of science, and integration in international networks and research programs, with the objective of facilitating the scientific development of the countries of origin and of combating the brain drain. Portugal ensures the launching and the early operation of this new center of distributed advanced scientific training, in cooperation with UNESCO and in combination with other CPLP countries.

The Foundation for National Scientific Computing (FCCN) presents July 28, 2009 the latest developments of the National Research and Education Network, the Science Technology and Society Network (RCTS), which were developed with funding and guidance of the Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC) and also supported by funds from the Knowledge Society Operational Program (POSC). The presentation, in the facilities of FCCN located at the National Laboratory of Civil Engineering (LNEC), Avenida do Brasil, Lisbon, is attended by the Minister of Science Technology and Higher Education, José Mariano Gago.

According to the 2008 report of the European Commission on the i2010 initiative for the Information Society, recently published, Portugal has one of the best positions in the European Union (EU) on eBusiness and eCommerce, integrating the group of 5 EU countries that, taking into account all the 10 indicators considered for these areas, are in the best positions. Besides Portugal, this group includes Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands and Austria. 

In 6 of the 7 indicators considered for eBusiness the values for Portugal are higher than the EU average, and in 3 of the indicators they even reach the 2nd or 3rd best position across the EU: 

At the end of the e-Science session today at the 2nd Meeting with Science in Portugal – Science 2009, in Room 1 of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation from 11.30 to 13.30, IBERCIVIS, the Voluntary Computing for Scientific Purposes initiative will be presented for the first time in Portugal. The project is being carried out in cooperation with Spain and enables citizens to participate in scientific research in a direct and real time manner, by giving up part of their computers' processing time to carrying out computational calculations of scientific interest through computational procedures distributed in a manner similar to those of Grid Computing.

The 3rd Meeting with Science in Portugal, organized by the Council of Associate Laboratories in collaboration with the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education will take place 29-30 July 2009 in the Gulbenkian Foundation headquarters building in Lisbon. The opening session will count with the participation of the Prime Minister and of the Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education.

On the 27th of July 2009, in presence of the Prime Minister, José Sócrates, it was organized a ceremony to commemorate the delivery to students, professors and trainees of 1 million laptops by the programs e.escola, e.professor, e.oportunidades and e.escolinha, just two years after the first two programs were initiated in June 2007 and a year after the launching of the e.escolinha program.

The programs e.escola, e.professor and e.oportunidades were created to facilitate the purchase of laptop computers with mobile broadband connections, respectively to 5th to 12th grade students, teachers of primary and secondary schools, and trainees in the New Opportunities Program with acquisition costs of 150 euros and a monthly subscription of mobile broadband access for 15 euros, with more favorable conditions applying to students who receive social support. The program e.escolinha has the objective of facilitating the purchase of Magalhães Computers by primary school students, the Portuguese Low Cost Computer Designed for Students of the 1st to 4th grades.

University of Madeira, Madeira Technopole and Carnegie Mellon University sign, on July 23, 2009, a protocol for creating a new private R&D  institute in the area of Information and Communication Technologies, Madeira – Interactive Technologies Institute (Madeira - ITI), in a ceremony in the presence of the Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education, José Mariano Gago, and the Secretary of State of Science, Technology and Higher Education, Manuel Heitor. The creation of this institute had been proposed at the 5th meeting of the Board of Directors of the Carnegie Mellon – Portugal Program, chaired by Luis Magalhães, President of the Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC) and held at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, USA, on the 27th and 28th of May 2009.

A new portal for the b-on: (Biblioteca do Conhecimento Online) has been launched with better usability and for the first time, it completely complies with the accessibility guidelines for citizens with special needs, from W3C - World Wide Web Consortium (level AAA for the WCAG – Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 for WAI – Web Accessibility Initiative of the W3C).

The b-on portal thus joins the limited number of medium or large-sized Internet Websites which completely comply with the accessibility guidelines of the W3C, as has been the case with The Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC) website for about a year and a half.

Less than four years after Portugal and Spain have signed an agreement to create this R&D laboratory, in November 2005, the building of the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory was officially inaugurated on July 17, 2009. This laboratory will be the 1st in the world with an international legal status with States as members which is specially dedicated to nanotechnology, thus offering the best conditions for the most talented researchers from around the world to develop top research in nanotechnology. It is also the 1st international laboratory in the Iberian Peninsula in any area of research, leading to Portugal and Spain to enter the restricted group of countries that have such research international organizations in their territory.

The Association of Municipalities of the District of Évora and the partnership set up to develop the “Broadband Community Network for the Évora District” officially presented this Next Generation Network on 15 July 2009 in a session which took place at the new premises of the University of Évora. Present at the session was the Minister for Science, Technology and Higher Education, José Mariano Gago. The same session was combined with a ceremony to inaugurate the Colégio dos Leões (Antiga Fábrica dos Leões), and included a presentation on the new University site which will house teaching and research work in the Visual Arts, Multimedia, Design and Architecture.

According to the Report on Dematerialization and the Use of ICT, Lisbon 16-17 March 2009, of the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice Council of Europe (CoE), published in Strasbourg on June 11, 2009, Portugal is in the top position of the 47 European countries that are members of the CoE in dematerialization and use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Justice. 

The report states that several projects initiated since 2005 have led to very positive results, namely: by the end of February 2009, the enterprises created by the Enterprise on the Spot program reached more more than 67,900 companies and this system is used for about 70% of all enterprises being created in Portugal, 4,373 enterprises were created completely through the Internet (with the system developed by the Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC) and in operation since June 2006, see The Enterprise’s Portal which was also developed by UMIC and is in operation since June 2006), more than 1,400 associations were created completely through the Internet, more than 31,260 acts of Commercial Registry were done online, more than 1 million permanent certificates were issued via the Internet, about 1.5 million acts of enterprises were published in the Internet instead of the III series of the Portugal Official Journal (Diário da República), as it was the case before. Since it was created in December 2006 until the end of January 2009, the service providing permanent certificates to enterprises on the Internet, issued more than 1 million permanent certificates. By the end of 2008, more than 792,000 Simplified Business Information (IES) declarations were reported through the Internet in a single form instead of the paper forms that previously required to be submitted annually to four different public organizations (Fiscal Administration, Commercial Registry, National Statistics Institute, Bank of Portugal). 

On 8-9 of June 2009, in Lisbon, an OECD Experts Conference was organized, with the support of Portugal, on Using Sensor-Based Networks to Address Global Issues: Policy Opportunities and Challenges. The conference was chaired by Luis Magalhães, President of the Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC) of the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education, and Vice Chair of the Committee for Information, Computer and Communications Policy (ICCP), the OECD committee involved in organizing the conference. This conference includes sessions on the following themes:

• Health and elderly care
• Protection of the environment
• Transportation
• Policy discussion: Public policies in innovation, research, privacy, security and interoperability.

In the scope of the official commemorations for the National Day of the Universities of the Third Age, RUTIS - Universities of the Third Age Association Network and Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC) signed a Cooperation protocol on 21st May 2009 at Fundão Universidade Sénior, located next to the Fundão Pavilhão Multiusos. This protocol foresees UMIC’s support for the bodies responsible for Internet Spaces so that Universities of the Third Age may use these spaces to hold Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) classes on a timetable to be arranged in each case, and for spaces with access to computers and the Internet to be included in Universities of the Third Age that meet the conditions set out in the Internet Spaces Network.

In the 12th of February 2009, at the Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC), takes place the 3rd Workshop on Broadband Community Networks. This workshop brings together the promoters (municipal associations) of 4 Broadband Community Networks that were created by the program prepared by UMIC and partially supported by the Knowledge Society Operational Program (POSC): Minho Valley, Lima Valley, Terra Quente Transmontana, Évora District.

These Broadband Community Networks are optical fiber Next Generation Networks in deprived areas or where there are failures of the telecommunications market, particularly due to low population densities, which can be explored on multi-operation and provide equal access to all operators in tendering for exploitation.

There are 4 ongoing construction projects of Broadband Community Networks: Évora District, Terra Quente Transmontana, Minho Valley, Lima Valley, a total length exceeding 1,000 km of optical fiber cable and a total investment of 34 million euros. The Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC) constituted and ensures the operation of the Technical Support Commission (CAT), under which the coordination and monitoring of the ongoing projects is assured. The following figures show the evolution of the indicators of progress of the various projects, updated weekly.

The Results of the International Assessment of Research Units, covered by the Multiannual Financing Programme for the FCT R&D Units, were published by FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology, IP, on 17 December 2008.

The process of international assessment of the country’s research units, started in 1996 and repeated in 1999-2000 and 2002-2004, follows international standards and analyses, in particular, the best work selected by each R&D unit, in order to allow analysis by independent specialists of the scientific activity carried out, as opposed to using merely quantitative indicators.

Portugal was the EU country which showed the largest growth in R&D expenditure in terms of GDP from 2005 to 2007, reaching 1.18% of GDP when in 2005 it was just 0.81% of GDP. Portugal is now close to Spain (1.22%) and Ireland (1.31%), and has passed Hungary (0.97%), Italy (1.09%) and Estonia (1.14%).

R&D expenditure in terms of GDP more than doubled from to 2005 to 2007, reaching 0.61% of GDP when in 2005 it was just 0.29% of GDP. For the first time R&D expenditure in companies was greater than the amount recorded for other institutions. The number of companies with R&D activities showed unparalleled growth, rising from around 930 in 2005 to more than 1,500 in 2007.

There was a large increase in the number of researchers in the active population, rising from 3.8‰ in 2005 to 5.0‰ in 2007, with the number of researchers equivalent to full time posts doubling in the last ten years (from around 14 thousand in 1997 to around 28 thousand in 2007). The number of researchers in the active population is now close to the EU27 average (5.6‰), although this is still lower that the OCDE average (7.0‰).

The number of researchers in companies more than doubled from 2005 to 2007, moving from around 4 thousand to 8.6 thousand, and was accompanied by an increase in the number of researchers which companies stated as having PhDs  (around 360 in 2007).

The Information and Communication Technology Policy Support Programme (ICT PSP) aims to speed up sustainable development in a competitive, innovative and inclusive information society. It is one of the three specific programmes belonging to the EU's Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme.

The first call for ICT PSP proposals will run from 25th May to 23rd October 2007.

The budget for the ICT PSP 2007 Working Programme will be 65.5 M€ and will focus on the following themes:

Calls for proposals have been launched for several of the Information and Communication Technologies topic objectives. More information can be found at CORDIS FP7.

Challenge 1: Pervasive and Trusted Network and Service Infrastructures

The network of the future, Service and software architectures, infrastructures and engineering, ICT in support of the networked enterprise, Secure, dependable and trusted infrastructures, Networked media;