Organization of the R&D Unit

The research work is organized in project activities leaded by senior researchers involving multidisciplinary competences within ISR. Each project activity is usually financed by research projects funded by national and international bodies, such as FCT, P2030 or Horizon Europe or by the industry. Each project activity has intermediate level researchers with PhD (post-docs) that are induty of certain topics. MsC students and PhD students doing research for their degree are usually supervised by the senior leader of the work activity with the help of post-docs.

In some research projects related to different topics in the above mentioned research areas there is interaction within ISR-UC, to take advantage of existing synergies to speed up the research and for the discussion of novel ideas.

Post-docs and PhD students are encouraged to take active part in the writing of proposals and encouraged to participate in networking and research events, such as summer schools or focus groups. Internally, they are also engaged in the annual Open Day @ ISR, with presentations and discussion and a social event.

Training and education activities are of high importance in order to enable cross-fertilization and innovation across disciplinary boundaries. ISR plays an active role in several doctoral programs and provides experimental and scientific guidance to a large number (over one hundred) of students. ISR successfully attracts high quality young researchers, from a variety of 8 countries around the World, to be integrated in R&D projects and in doctoral programs.

The activities in the unit are highly interdisciplinar by nature there has been strong interaction between the activity areas. Moreover, ISR actively collaborates with the Faculty of Medicine, health institutions and research centers (CNC-Center for Neuroscience, Rehabilitation RP Hospital, IBILI-Optical and Biomedical Imaging and Life Sciences Institute), as well as with a variety of high technology industries and international centers of excellence. Cooperation with industry is carried out through research contracts. Patent registration for the innovative results with market potential has been continuously carried out, with major results achieved at international level in the last 5 years.

ISR also has been successful promoting technology transfer and the creation of spin-offs associated with the development of research results. The research work is disseminated in top ternational journals and confinerences (over 350 papers in 2018-2023). ISR has actively collaborated in the organization of high ranking international scientific meetings and conferences.

ISR has strong interaction with some of the best research centers around the World, participating in large international projects. ISR will continue to participate in networks of excellence in the robotics area and wants to keep organizing scientific meetings at the highest level (e.g. IROS, ICRA, IEEEITSC, ROMAN).

The interaction between the 4 activity areas is promoted through various actions. This includes:

- Financing research projects through seed funding for projects that are the result of interaction between different activity area;

- Financing PhD students/Post-Docs that promote a collaboration between various activity areas in the ISR;

- Annual Open Day @ISR workshop for demonstration of works of various activity areas, whichserves as well for external dissemination.

ISR wants to continue to consolidate and expand activities in several fronts which are deemed essential to ensure the achievement of scientific and technological excellence:

- Increase the level of internationalization by promoting more intense networking targeting the impact of the R&D work to develop innovative products and services;

- Participation in large international projects (e.g. Horizon Europe Program), involving the best research centers, universities and industries;

- Attraction of high quality young researchers to be integrated in R&D projects and in doctoral programs;

- Participation in networks of excellence in research and educationm (ISR is a member of euRobotics AISBL, European Robotics Association);

- Cooperation with industry through research contracts in advanced projects with a high innovationcontents;

- Patent registration for the innovative results with market potential;

- Dissemination of research work in top international journals and conferences. Organization of international scientific meetings and conferences.