About Instituto de Telecomunicações

IT mission is to create and disseminate scientific knowledge in the field of telecommunications. IT is actively involved in fundamental and applied research in telecommunications at national / international levels. IT also fosters higher education and training, by hosting and tutoring graduate / postgraduate students. 

Research team: With about 300 researchers holding a PhD (152 FTE), about 250 PhD students and 200 MSc students, IT expertise spans all areas of telecommunications and supporting sciences, including wireless communications, optical communications, networks and multimedia. By joining geographically scattered expertise and by creating a common culture excellence, IT has managed to reach a critical mass that enables to level with the most influential players in telecommunications to compete for external funding and get international visibility and recognition. In almost all cases the research is carried out in the framework of national and international projects and it involves cooperation with similar research institutions worldwide. IT-Covilhã was created in 2002, after some of the founder researchers have concluded their PhDs in IT-Coimbra and IT-Lisbon, a cooperation that started 25 years ago.  Currently, IT-Covilhã gathers 24 researcher holding a PhD, more than 30 PhD students and tens of enthusiastic MSc students. Over its 25 years of existence, IT has made quite remarkable contributions for the advancement of Telecommunications, at world level. These contributions span all the scientific areas of IT: Wireless Communications, Optical Communications and Networks and Multimedia, as well as Basic Sciences and Enabling Technologies. IT has ample international recognition, with 7 of the 14 Portuguese IEEE fellows, 30+ IEEE senior members, Associate Editors of 70 international journals and numerous members of international scientific boards. With cutting-edge laboratories and highly qualified teams, IT has been an active player in some of the greatest endeavors in telecommunications, from the birth of 4G in the early nineties to the global Square Kilometer Array project or the race challenge of all-optical communications. IT is the Portuguese institution with the largest participation in FP7 projects (65), and the 3rd at National level in terms of funding obtained from FP7 projects. IT international  reputation has enabled important contracts e.g. with Huawei, Thales Alenia Space, Nokia Siemens Networks Cisco, Google among many other prestigious players in the Telecommunications industry. Technology transfer has been active also with several local companies, namely Portugal Telecom Inovação. About 10% of the filed patents have originated Start-ups. In 2012, IT had cooperation with 130 international institutions/labs in 25 countries. Students have received at least 27 Best Paper Awards in International Conferences in the period 2008-2012 (and more than 20 in 2014).