Innovation Europe > News > Innovation EU Vol1-1 > Knowledge Society Agency - Portugal

The Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC) is the Portuguese public agency with the mission of coordinating the policies of the Information and Knowledge Society and mobilising them through dissemination, qualification and research activities.

It is driven by the vision of accelerating the appropriation by the Portuguese society of knowledge, information and emerging technologies, highly internationalised and opening up opportunities for the accomplishment of people and organisations. Its strategy spans:

• Knowledge and Technology. To foster the creation and social benefit of new knowledge in areas with high potential for increasing wealth and employment, such as ICT and Nanotechnology.
• Networks. To enhance collaboration networks between people and organisations, promoting productivity, creativity and excellence.
• Inter nationalis ation. To seek highly internationalised knowledge and technology creation and transfer, and Information and Knowledge Society policymaking.
• Observation. To assure objective observation of the Information and Knowledge Society and its evolution.

Activities are focused in the action plan Connecting Portugal, launched by the government in July 2005, mainly in:

e-SCIENCE – Providing new ICT tools for research

Since 2005 this area has had an explosive development. 10 Gbps connectivity in dark fibre is provided to 80% of the national research and university system and supports one of the most advanced Next Generation Networks at the service of science.

KNOWLEDGE – Building ambitious international knowledge networks

Partnerships of research institutions were established with MIT, Carnegie Mellon, University of Texas Austin, Fraunhofer (involving the creation of the first Fraunhofer Institute outside Germany) and Harvard Medical School. These programmes include topics for Future Internet: Sensor networks and Internet of things, Intelligent ambients, Advanced mobile communications, Next Generation Networks, Engineering systems and robotics, Energy sustainable systems, Intelligent transportation systems, Security of information systems and networks, Critical infrastructures, Digital interactive content.

Another bold initiative is the creation of the INL – International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory in Braga, agreed upon by Portugal and Spain in November 2005. INL was formally inaugurated in July 2009, and will start scientific operation at the end of 2009, in Nanomedicine, and Environmental and Food Quality applications.

EDUCAT ION AND TRAINING – Transforming education

All schools were connected to broadband before February 2006. Programmes to increase the acquisition of laptops for basic and secondary school students have already assured the deployment of close to 1.4 million just in 2007–2009.

ENTERPRISE – Enhancing growth, employment and competitiveness

Since 2005, support has been provided to 116 science and technology-based enterprises creation projects, 22 Knowledge and Technology Transfer Offices, inclusively in all public universities, and nine Networks of Competence in high-tech areas.

INCLUSION AND ACCESSIBILITY – Promoting social inclusion

The “Internet Spaces Network” provides free access to computers and the Internet. It is the densest such network in Europe. A special unit promotes good practices of ICT accessibility to people with special needs, leading to one of the best performances in governmental web content accessibility.

Through the “Solidarity Network” free access to Internet and web-site housing is provided to about 250 NGOs of people with special needs.

PUBLIC SERVICE – Simplifying and improving public service

Ambitious eGovernment services were developed in 2005–2007: Citizen Portal, Enterprise Portal, Citizen Card, interoperability platform, full creation of enterprises online. They allowed Portugal to reach fourth position in the EU in May 2007 for online public service.

In June 2009, the Council of Europe ranked Portugal number one in dematerialization and use of ICT in Justice.

Website: www.umic.pt