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CMU Portugal gathered its community in a symposium

The student community of the Carnegie Mellon University Portugal (CMU Portugal) doctoral program met last September 15 at the Pavilhão do Conhecimento, in Lisbon, in a Symposium that took place in a hybrid format (face-to-face and online), broadcasted on Youtube, still available for viewing, under the theme "Developing a supportive community for all researchers pursuing their PhDs under the scope of CMU Portugal initiatives".

The event was attended by 24 students from different areas of the CMU Portugal PhD Program, with the aim of sharing their experiences as PhD students and their research work, namely in the areas of Data Science and Engineering; Artificial Intelligence; Machine Learning; Language Technologies; Data Analysis; Cloud Computing; and Engineering and Public Policies. The opening session of the initiative was attended by Manuel Heitor, Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education; José Paulo Esperança, Vice President of the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT); Inês Lynce, Director of CMU Portugal; and Rosalia Vargas, President of the Ciência Viva Agency.

The Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education stressed the relevance of the program in building new frontiers of knowledge, considering it an excellent opportunity for networking and sharing. He also mentioned that year after year the CMU Portugal program is one of the best for the best students, with unique moments and opportunities.

For his part, the Vice-President of FCT stressed the importance of the CMU Portugal program and of initiatives such as goPORTUGAL to stimulate the connection and sharing of knowledge internationally. He also pointed out that in recent times Portugal has been in the spotlight, as one of the countries where the creation of the largest number of "unicorn" companies has emerged, praising also the choices of study areas for students of the CMU Portugal doctoral program.

The event was addressed to all candidates to CMU Portugal PhD program, candidates to affiliated PhD programs and all PhD candidates doing their thesis within one of CMU Portugal research projects. The symposium allowed to promote the collaborative research environment and the dialogue between students, former students, scientific committees, researchers and coordinators of the CMU Portugal partners. It was also possible to create and strengthen networks, giving participants the opportunity to present their work plans, results obtained to date and discuss the results with their peers.

The CMU Portugal program is part of a set of international partnerships established by FCT, focused on US institutions, which since 2006 have promoted the internationalization of national scientific and higher education institutions, involving more than 1000 teachers and researchers and more than 1500 master's and doctoral students. These partnerships are currently integrated in the goPORTUGAL initiative, which for the period 2018-2023 has defined as objectives to strengthen and expand the concept of international partnerships.