Research units
Research units
CERIS is the largest research unit in Portugal in the area of Civil Engineering, comprising a total of 404 researchers, namely 123 members (PhDs), 89 PhD collaborators and 192 non-PhD collaborators.
The main research topic is sustainability and innovation in the different areas of Civil Engineering, which are organized into 6 Research Groups: Hydraulics (RG1), Environment and Water Resources (RG2), Systems and Management (RG3), Transportation Systems (RG4), Studies on Construction (RG5) and Structures and Geotechnics (RG6). Globally, the research activities are organized in 4 Thematic Strands: a) Product Development in Civil Engineering Industries; b) Risk and Safety in Built and Natural Environments; c) Rehabilitation of Built and Natural Environments; d) Response to Natural and Societal Changes.
CERIS is located at Instituto Superior Técnico and has two poles (Universidade Nova and Universidade de Coimbra), and it includes researchers from 18 national and foreign Research Institutions.
The excellence of CERIS research has been recognized nationally, with the award of Excellent classification by the FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, as well as internationally, with the Shanghai and Taiwan rankings for Civil Engineering placing the research of the CERIS as the main Portuguese research centre. At the international level CERIS is in the 8th position in the Taiwan ranking (Civil Engineering field) and 50-75 in the Shanghai ranking.
CITUA - Centre for innovation in Territory, Urbanism and Architecture - is a research unit of IST-ID (Association of Instituto Superior Técnico for Research and Development), evaluated with excellent, in 2019, by the FCT, the Portuguese national funding agency for science, research and technology.
CiTUA’s activities are conducted according to international best practices to strengthen the physical coherence and social cohesion of contemporary urban territories and their built spaces, in convergence with the Sustainable Development Goals defined by the United Nations.
Based on a humanistic approach, and through collaborative innovation, starting from the culture of places and guided by a pragmatic problem-oriented approach, CiTUA's vision is guided by the main principles:
- The significance of the material and immaterial legacy of natural and anthropic territories, which provide a basis for the development of diachronic (historical) representations of urban and architectural phenomena, interpreting the dynamics and trends of the past towards effective long-term change;
- The necessary reconstruction of the relationship between the global and local scale of urban territories from economic, social, political, technological, cultural and environmental perspectives;
- The significance and dynamic condition of the local dimension of urban territories holds the potential to create, maintain and dignify livable, self-sustainable and adaptable solutions that fully fit specific sites and socio-economic and governance contexts.
These transversal and integrative research themes address issues related to Planning and Management for the Wider City; Landscape as a Socio-Ecological System; Spatial Justice; and Knowledge Environments. They balance theories, methods and instruments, with a strong emphasis in the application to empirical cases.
Research focuses mainly on Europe, but emerging and developing regions deserve increasing attention from CiTUA research, with a special focus on Lusophone countries.
