The Digital Media Program will catalyze world-class research, education, and training programs that will involve professors and graduate students from the founding universities as well as top international talent recruited from other sites as well. Student recruitment will focus on highly qualified Portuguese students from Portugal and other Portuguese-speaking countries as well as highly qualified non-Portuguese-speaking students. Classes will normally be taught in English with select courses being taught in Portuguese. The Program will emphasize transdisciplinary research, education, and teamwork among faculty, students, and practitioners. State-of-the-art content management systems and e-learning will support teaching activities in both individual and collective team-building projects. Portuguese students are expected to spend at least one semester at The University of Texas at Austin (or in some cases, at another foreign university) as well as serve as interns at related business partners in Austin, Texas and the U.S. as well as select foreign countries.

Many courses in the Digital Media Program will be based on teaching by immersion with students working on independent, collaborative projects; these may include Web 2.0 projects and experimental journalism, television and radio over IP projects, a multi-player game, and a gallery for interactive advertising. These projects will involve students and faculty from multiple sites whenever possible. The Digital Media Program will organize and implement graduate-level courses available to students seeking advanced degrees, both the Masters and the Doctorate, at the collaborating universities, as well as shorter, intensive workshops for professionals. The Program will help establish degree programs in Portuguese universities and advise on curriculum and research matters. The Digital Media Program will seek to develop advanced research programs to be conducted according to the highest scientific and professional standards, including publications in leading international peer-reviewed journals and exhibition of work in competitive venues.

Various types of activities will be developed and incorporated into the Digital Media Program. A broad outline includes the following:

• Masters Program: A new one-year “Professional Masters” degree program to be offered by UNL and UP, in close collaboration with academic staff at the College of Communication at UT-Austin.
• Ph.D. Program: A new PhD degree program to be offered by UNL and UP in close collaboration with faculty members at The University of Texas at Austin to be conducted according to the highest scientific and educational demands.
• Contribution to existing Ph.D. Programs: Students of existing Ph.D. Programs, such as the Computer Science/Informatics program at FCT/UNL and similar programs at U. Porto will be able to follow course work and develop research within the program. This allows for a closer collaboration between multiple disciplines such as the Advanced Computing area, also included in the overall program with The University of Texas at Austin.
• Continuing education programs: Professional graduate workshops and short courses to train future academic and business leaders in digital media.
• Student exchange: Promote international experience for quality graduate students through exchanges between Portuguese universities and The University of Texas at Austin.
• Research: Foster cooperative research projects in the context of Digital Media Program courses and independent study on such topics as online journalism, foundations of digital media, and research methods. Portuguese and UT-Austin students will be encouraged to engage in interdisciplinary research teams with faculty and practitioners outside the classroom. Faculty-led research projects will include graduate student mentors and undergraduate student researchers. A research practicum course should be a routine part of the curriculum.
• Internships: Create relevant internships for participating students in various organizational settings.
• Fellowships and Research Chairs Develop fellowships and visiting research positions at The University of Texas at Austin and at Portuguese universities for professors to visit and teach at collaborating universities and engage in quality research and publishing.
• Distance Education: The collaboration between Portuguese public and private institutions and UT-Austin should be facilitated with the use of video and audio conferencing and computer-based educational and collaboration media. Particular attention will be given to the use of new media in online instruction and e-learning.
• Curriculum Development: Transfer successful course material and faculty expertise between UT-Austin and Portuguese institutions. Develop creative and innovative courses in such areas as digital narrative, animation, and advertising including short course formats such as five hours/day for five days for one-to-two week workshops.
• Develop studio-based environments for Digital Media projects wherever practicable – an open space mostly managed by students that is interdisciplinary and largely self-regulated can foster creativity.
• Develop integrated knowledge and virtual communities: Expand Digital Media research programs to other disciplines, deepening knowledge generation processes and enlarging the network of Portuguese and UT-Austin research groups. The objective includes fostering projects through which firms can engage in research and development activities, both in-house and through collaborations with university researchers. Attention should be focused on:
  • New ideas in digital media content as well as applied science, engineering, and broader technologies as they relate to digital media;
  • Working on broad-based digital media problems that require innovative solutions, especially areas where comparison and knowledge sharing may be of particular relevance to new media development in Portugal;
  • Broadening The University of Texas at Austin and Portuguese academic institutional collaborations where feasible to include leading US and European companies;
  • Analyzing and finding solutions to problems and needs with research conducted according to the highest scientific demands, with publications in leading international peer-reviewed journals. Envisioned research programs may include the following:
    • Mobile content development
    • Advanced digital media production and distribution
    • Documentary systems in interactive environments such as interactive documentary
    • Technologies with a social impact such as bridging the digital divide or addressing issues for an aging population including the development of inclusive technologies and systems for the elderly
    • Fostering international collaborations between industry and academia in Portugal and the US that focus on technology entrepreneurship and commercialization

In Portugal, the Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC) and the Portuguese National Science Foundation (FCT) have recently launched the Portuguese National Grid Initiative (INGRID). The objectives of this initiative include upgrading infrastructures at computing clusters and upgrading connectivity at both the backbone level and the local loop level. It also supports R&D projects in grid computing as well as demonstration projects that apply grid computing to other scientific areas, such as high energy physics, meteorology, oceanography, and health sciences, among others. Finally, INGRID also offers support for advanced training of human resources in ways that promote both multidisciplinary work and the internationalization of Portuguese projects in advanced computing.

Research centers, higher education institutions and companies that in Portugal work and conduct research in the field of advanced and grid computing include the Laboratory for Energy, Transports and Aeronautics (LAETA), the Laboratory for Particle Physics (LIP), the Center for Computational Physics at the University of Coimbra (CFC-UC), the Dependable Systems Group (DSG) of the Department of Computer Science at the Universidade de Coimbra (CS-UC), the University of Aveiro (UA), the University of Porto (UP), the Computer Science Department at Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa (CS-FCTUNL), the Department of Computer Science at the University of Minho (CS-UM) and Instituto Superior Tecnico of the Technical University of Lisbon (ISTUTL; including IDMEC-Institute for Mechanical Engineering, ICIST- Institute for Structural Engineering, Territory and Construction, and the Centre for Plasma Physics). Also, the software company Critical Software (CSW), a spin-off from University of Coimbra.

LAETA, the Associate Laboratory for Energy, Transports and Aeronautics is developing a range of grid applications, including initiatives in “GRID-Turbulence”, parallel processing for concurrent structural and material optimization, the human motion “BioGrid”, parallelization algorithms for image processing and mesh generation in biomedical applications and error estimation for large scale problems. Some of these activities are under development in close collaboration with ICIST and other research units at ISTUTL.

LIP is a partner in the following international projects: Worldwide CERN-LHC Computing Grid, EGEE-2 - Enabling Grids for E-sciencE, Int.EU.Grid - Interactive European Grid, and Project EELA - E-infrastructure shared between Europe and Latin America. LIP is the recognized Grid Certification Authority for Portugal. Under the EGEE-2 LIP shares responsibilities on operations, user and site support, global support, core services,authentication services, pre-production, production cluster, dissemination, training and deployment coordination. LIP is deploying a TIER-2 Grid Computing Unit planned to integrate 1000 CPU’s.

CFC-UC hosts and manages two HPC clusters (one soon to be managed by LIP and to be part of the EGEE/LCG grid). Its research topics, which use HPC/GRID resources, include Lattice Quantum Chromodynamics and Time-Dependent Density Functional Theory (TDDFT) applied to nano-systems. Members of the CFC-UC play an important role in the maintenance and development of the code OCTOPUS used in TDDFT applications.

At DSG-CS-UC the research topics include dependability benchmarking for advanced and grid middleware and grid services, self-healing techniques for grid middleware, fault-tolerance techniques for desktop grid middleware, sabotage-tolerance and trust-management and virtualization techniques for grid applications.

CSW developed WMPI II, an advanced version of Message Passing Interface (MPI) that supports code parallelization for high performance clusters. CSW participated in the HICOD2000 ESA project, an open architecture to produce JPEG2000 coded digital images from Earth Observation (EO) products using high-performance OGSA Grid environment. Currently CSW participates in the project “GODIS - Grid On Demand” project that aims to operate the advanced infrastructure used at ESRIN, which will provide external users the exploitation of high performance computing resources and easy access to earth observation data.

At University of Aveiro (UA), faculty and researchers at the Department of Electronics, Telecommunications and Informatics (DETI) and related Research Units IT and IEETA run research projects in the area of Grid Computing and Applications, namely the EU´s funded projects AKOGRIMO and the project INFOGENEMED, which was coordinated by UA. In addition, it should be noted the involvement in the HealthGrid Association, which has been associated with the publication of a white paper on the subject, and the BIN network (Brain Imaging network, involving Universities of Minho, Porto, Coimbra and Aveiro and financed by the Portuguese Science Foundation), as well as the collaboration with the EEGE project and the use of Grid Computing in the healthcare. The DETI is also involved in a joint PhD program in the scientific Area of Informatics with the Universities of Porto and Minho, which considers the domain of Grid Computing. Applications are also under development in several other departments and research units (Mathematics, Physics, Environment, Biology).

At University of Porto, UP, several initiatives are ongoing concerning Advanced Computing, including the establishment and deployment of a University Campus Grid (the key contact person being Ligia Ribeiro), in order to support applied research in science and engineering, as well as several research projects on computational science and engineering and on emerging technologies for Advanced Computing (namely at FEUP - Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto and in the FC - Faculdade de Ciências, the key contact person being Fernando Silva). In addition, the University of Porto is also involved in a collaboration with U. Minho and U. Aveiro in a joint doctoral degree in Computer Science, where emerging Advanced Computing technologies play an important role.

At CS-FCTUNL, research takes place in the context of the two research centers hosted by the department: the Center for Informatics and IT (CITI) and the Center for Artificial Intelligence (CENTRIA). At CITI, directed by Professor José Cardoso e Cunha, new paradigms for global, large-scale and distributed computing are being investigated with respect to the design of new abstractions, programming models, software concepts, tools and environments, system architectures, and networks (including mobile, overlay and peer to peer networks). Research in advanced and grid computing is ongoing at three main levels, both at FCTUNL and through international cooperation: (i) abstractions, methodologies, and tools to facilitate the development of large-scale and dynamic grid applications; (ii) distributed and advanced computing systems and their application in science and engineering through multidisciplinary partnerships, namely involving other faculty at FCTUNL such as those in environment, geology, and materials science, and Edisoft, a company close to the FCTUNL campus with a strong R&D component and expertise in advanced computing projects; (iii) education at M.Sc. and Ph.D levels, with the responsibility for a M.Sc. course on advanced and grid computing systems and Applications, in the FCTUNL Master in Computer Science, and also involved in an international project on curriculum development for advanced computing, involving graduation of PhD students.

CS-UM has been active in parallel and distributed computing for more than a decade. R&D follows software engineering approaches while keeping the original concerns on application-oriented performance and scalability and on the deployment of HPC systems for computational science. Research focuses on the theoretical and applied issues critical to parallel and distributed computing that allow for exploiting medium to large HPC and communications systems. Current applied R&D projects address the following issues: programming paradigms and tools for portable/pluggable parallel and advanced computing (Java and Aspect-oriented); grid-enabled frameworks to run multi-paradigm interactive applications; adaptive computing models for parallel global illumination in image rendering; computer vision techniques based on parallel vector co-processing (gpGPU's); models and tools to port advanced-enabled scientific applications; large scale distributed information retrieval and data mining applications; high-performance distributed dictionaries; simulation of huge computer networks protocols and applications; modeling and parallel simulation of large forest fires on a grid of clusters based on grid-aware geo-referenced data, to support real-time decisions in civil protection environments.

CS-UM is currently managing a multi-disciplinary computing infra-structure based on interconnected computing clusters of SMP nodes (EM64T-based CPU's) with fast internode links (Myrinet 10G), to be shortly linked to national and European Grids. UM is currently running the first joint doctoral program in Portugal in computer science, together with University of Oporto and University of Aveiro. Likewise, the development of a joint Ph.D. program between Portugal and UT-Austin in the area of advanced computing is a subject worth further consideration and implementation.

At Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), the Laboratory and Simulation of Energy and Fluids (LASEF) at IDMEC performs research in the field of fluid dynamics that resorts heavily to the use of high-performance and grid computing tools. In addition, IDMEC-Institute for Mechanical Engineering, is entering into a major research initiative with ICIST- Institute for Structural Engineering, Territory and Construction in grid applications. Also, the Centre for Plasma Physics at IST (PPC-IST) is developing an e-science program aimed at training scientists to use grid computing tools and interfaces to access high-performance shared resources for simulation purposes and for aided visualization of scientific results, the key contact person being Luis Oliveira e Silva. These activities are developed in international consortia, namely the Osiris consortium, leaded by UCLA and IST, which develops applications for numerical simulation in plasma physics. PPC-IST has also recently established a new partnership with the super-computing Center MareNostrum in Barcelona, for simulation and analysis of scientific results from theoretical models for particle acceleration. PPC-IST is currently setting up its own grid computing cluster with 256 CPU cores.

At UT-Austin, research in the area of advanced and grid computing is mostly performed at The Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences (ICES), the Department of Computer Science (CS-UTA), and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE-UTA). In addition, UT-Austin hosts one of the most powerful advanced computing centers in the world, the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC).

At ICES, several faculty members are involved in large-scale computational science simulations. For example, Professor Mary Wheeler has a large group that simulates oil-reservoirs, and Professors Tinsley Oden and Tom Hughes lead a group that is working on computational medicine in collaboration with the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Texas. Faculty in ECE, such as Professors Vijay Garg, Margarida Jacome, and Gustavo de Viciana are conducting research on a variety of techniques for fault tolerance to hardware, software and data faults, load balancing and resource allocation in physical and overlay networks, and sensor networking and ubiquitous computing involving different models for gathering information, and distributing computation and data in a physical environment. Faculty in CS, such as Professors Keshav Pingali and Chandrajit Bajaj, are working on application-level checkpoint-restart techniques for long-running computational science applications, and visualization.

TACC is engaged in grid computing research and development and acts as a key player in operational grids such as the TeraGrid and Open Science Grid to service national users and the Texas Internet Grid for Research and Education (TIGRE) to service users in Texas. At TACC, Dr. Edward Walker develops techniques for constructing virtual clusters, user-level file systems, and overlay networks. Dr. Warren Smith investigates performance prediction and scheduling of distributed systems. Dr. Ashok Adiga researches scheduling and desktop grids. Dr. Kelly Gaither develops methods for remote visualization. Dr. Kent Milfeld is a leader of the GridChem project that allows users to configure computational chemistry simulations, execute them across a number of distributed clusters, and analyze the results. Eric Roberts and Maytal Dahan build web portals for grids such as TeraGrid and TIGRE as well as science gateways for flood modeling and visualization.

The Grid Computing Group at TACC has several R&D projects in progress and receives funding from four federal agencies (NSF, NASA, DoE, and DoD) to support its work. The R&D activities are focused on four main objectives: Advanced resources information data storage/archival system; Web services for Grids; Grid-based portals; and deployment, configuration, and enhancement of Grid schedulers. These activities are targeted towards three main Grod deployment efforts: a UT campus advanced, the High Performance Computing Across Texas HiPCAT Texas Internet Grid for Research & Education (TIGRE), and NSF Grid programs at NPACI, including the TeraGrid. The R&D projects will also contribute to emerging DoD and DoE Grids and to the NASA Information Power Grid (IPG).

In the context of the cooperative program between the Portuguese Government and The University of Texas at Austin (UT-Austin) a specific project is proposed involving the Department of Mathematics, UT-Austin, the Department of Mathematics and associated research centers at the School of Sciences of UL (FCUL), the Department of Mathematics and associated research centers (namely CAMGSD, Centro de Análise Matemática, Geometria, e Sistemas Dinâmicos) at the Technical Superior Institute of UTL (IST-UTL), the Department of Mathematics and associated research centers at the School of Sciences and Technology of UNL (FCTUNL), and the Department of Mathematics and Center of Mathematics (CMUC) at the School of Sciences and Technology of UC (FCTUC). The project is to develop advanced programs of research and education in specific areas of mathematics of common interest and expertise to:

• Reinforce the scientific and learning capabilities in Portugal, as well as to promote the internationalization of research and graduate programs of the aforementioned university groups;
• Stimulate mobility and scientific interaction of graduate students, researchers and post-docs between the cited institutions;
• Attract to the involved universities strongly motivated students who are able to integrate advanced research programs in Mathematics and applications;
• Optimize resources, by promoting a PhD program that involves the major universities in Lisbon.

On the one hand, University Technology Enterprise Network (UTEN) knowledge transfer will foster and support objectives that are becoming more and more important for universities in Europe, the US, and elsewhere: (1) excellence in education and research, (2) enhanced interaction with the local region, and (3) enhanced internationalization.

On the other hand, it is realized that Portugal has already undertaken significant activities in the area of knowledge transfer at specific university campuses, some of which are expected to be part of this UT-Austin/Portugal UTEN cooperative program. It will be important for IC² Institute to learn about and partner with the ongoing S&T commercialization activities and experiences of relevant Portuguese universities and institutions to build on Portugal’s existing talent and knowledge base to help meet Portugal’s most critical challenges in the area of university-industry collaboration and S&T commercialization

For example, the activities carried out for the last decade at Instituto Superior Tecnico (IST) through the Center for Innovation, Technology and Policy Research, IN+, several of which were in close collaboration with the IC² Institute, have been at the leading edge of knowledge transfer and commercialization and, as a result, several technology-based companies have been launched in the US and international markets. The IMPACT program, 1998-2000, was particularly successful in promoting new businesses and links with industry. Evidence of the effectiveness of this program is illustrated by such Portuguese companies as Critical Software, Innovagency, and Biotecnol. More recently, the VECTORe program, also promoted by IN+ with the participation of the IC² Institute, has achieved interesting progress in technology commercialization and in building a network of young entrepreneurs. Such programs with successful track records should continue and be extended to other Portuguese universities in the context of the proposed UTEN UT-Austin/Portugal collaboration.

It should also be noted that ICAT/FCUL and INDEG/ISCTE share the vision of creating a Portuguese University Technology Enterprise Network (UTEN) with the mission of supporting technology knowledge transfer, fostering global enterprise innovation, and playing a major role in Portugal’s transformation to an innovation-based economy. In this view, UTEN should involve several OTICs (Technology Transfer Offices) from different universities that are capable of coordinating and leveraging Portugal’s existing entrepreneurial, incubator, innovation, and science and technology programs.

As an additional example, ISCTE has a strong interest and expertise in management and social sciences important to the development of technology projects and new business launching. ISCTE Business School and ICAT, through their joint Center Audax, agree that the University Technology Enterprise Network (UTEN) will be an important vehicle for collaboration that will support the goal of contributing to the development of Portugal’s intrapreneurship, entrepreneurship, and technology transfer activities (Esperanca, July 28, 2006). Within MIETE (a Masters Program in Innovation and Technological Entrepreneurship), a joint initiative of the Faculty of Engineering and the Faculty of Economics of the University of Porto with a partnership of Nimbas Univ. in Holland and Sheffield Univ. in UK, students are launching their own start-ups following to the scholar part of the program. Other important Portuguese initiatives in S&T commercialization have been successfully implemented, including IPN at the University of Coimbra, INESC-Porto at the University of Porto, UNAVE at the University of Aveiro, and INOVISA at ISA of the Technical University of Lisbon.

As envisioned, UTEN networks, activities, and programs will be progressively built over a 5-year time horizon through the realization of joint projects designed as multilateral partnerships. A critical objective is to build the mass needed for success of Portuguese S&T commercialization in global markets. Key objectives of the University Technology Enterprise Network are two-fold. First, UTEN needs to respond to the fact that Portugal’s national market is too small for accelerated company growth in general and especially for novel technologies. A second objective, however, is much more complex and arguably more important, and that is to stimulate and foster successful university-industry collaborations. Accordingly, UTEN projects will include training and “learning by doing” in the following areas:

• Training in technology commercialization
  • Training of technology-based entrepreneurs to stimulate new technology-based spin-outs from Portuguese universities and research centers and train and support existing start-up companies that are developing novel technologies for which the Portuguese market is too small.
  • Training of technology managers and technology transfer officers at an international level so they are better prepared to facilitate international S&T commercialization activities
• Market Access
  • Identify and train Portuguese talent to champion selected technologies to U.S. commercialization opportunities
  • Identify and select Portuguese and American SME’s with complementary products/services for joint collaboration and access for US and EU markets
  • Assist in due-diligence (market and technology assessment) in specific areas of expertise of ATI
  • Accelerate US market access and the general internationalization of Portuguese technology-based startups and established firms
• Public-Private Collaboration
  • Research challenges and facilitators to academic-business collaboration
  • Train Portuguese researchers and managers in how best to facilitate and sustain company-university collaborations regionally, nationally, and internationally