INESC TEC welcomed the School of Media Arts and Design

On February 4, representatives of the School of Media Arts and Design (ESMAD) – Polytechnic Institute of Porto – had the opportunity to get to know the research developed at the Institute in many areas: communication, design, immersive environments, user experience, multimedia, and product design. This visit was also important to explore potential collaboration opportunities between the two organisations.

José Manuel Mendonça and João Claro, Chairman and Vice-Chairman of INESC TEC’s board, respectively, welcomed the representatives and presented the institution’s different dimensions of research and innovation, as well as some metrics of scientific production and appreciation of knowledge, e.g., the number of publications, projects approved, funding raised, and start-ups created.

Ademar Aguiar, coordinator of the Centre for Human-Centered Computing and Information Science (HumanISE), Paula Viana, area manager at the Centre for Telecommunications and Multimedia (CTM) and César Toscano, project manager at the Centre for Enterprise Systems Engineering (CESE) represented INESC TEC’s centres and presented the work developed by each infrastructure, while promoting potential research actions in partnership with ESMAD.

Olívia Marques da Silva, ESMAD President, presented the work carried out by ESMAD, emphasising potential points of interest with INESC TEC, having demonstrated the existing skills in the areas of photography, communication and product design, and in several areas of multimedia production including immersive environments, games, cinema, video, documentary and animation. Gabriel David, Member of the Executive Board, Artur Pimenta Alves, Associate Director, and Rui Rodrigues, Senior Researcher at HumanISE, also represented INESC TEC during this visit; José Quinta Ferreira and João Azevedo, Vice-Presidents, Horácio Marques, Director of the Media Arts and Design Research Centre (uniMAD), Filipe Lopes, Luís Leite, Teresa Terroso and Vítor Quelhas also visited INESC TEC as part of the ESMAD.

The presentations were followed by a period of discussion in which the possibilities of collaboration in research became very apparent, having been stated that, for projects in the field of arts, the joint inclusion of the technological valences of INESC TEC and the artistic valences of ESMAD, will be an opportunity to explore. In the near future, collaborations should result from the direct approach of researchers from both institutions in the identification of projects of common interest. Reference was also made to INESC TEC’s availability and interest in hosting works by students at different levels of education, in the areas covered by ESMAD.

This visit followed a previous one to the facilities of ESMAD in Vila do Conde, with the participation of João Claro, Gabriel David and Artur Pimenta Alves, aiming to know the excellent infrastructures of that School, where took place a presentation of INESC TEC’s related fields, allowing the exploration of the possibilities for a collaboration between the two organisations.