The interest shown by the companies confirms NOVA FCT’s potential as an engine of innovation in the Setúbal Peninsula.
The recognition spans a range of scientific fields and highlights both the recent impact of the research carried out at NOVA FCT and its relevance across the researchers’ careers.
This distinction recognises the PhD student’s scientific career and her contribution to the mathematical community.
NOVA FCT students were among those awarded the Universidade NOVA de Lisboa Sports Merit Scholarships, presented on Thursday, 15 October, at the Rectorate. At the same ceremony, the School received the Student-Athlete Seal for the 2026-2028 biennium.
Students thus earn a European-accredited NOVA degree without leaving their home country.
Throughout the day, participants attended training sessions, gave pitches and talked directly with 160 professionals.
The Armed Forces Innovation Award aims to encourage ideas that help create or improve military capabilities. It places particular value on solutions that increase mobility, force sustainment and the effectiveness of operational systems.
“Receiving this honour in a city so close to Portugal reminds us that science knows no borders. I share it with my team and with all the women who choose science as their path, and I hope it will inspire the girls who today dream of becoming scientists,” says Elvira Fortunato.
With this award, Elvira Fortunato and Rodrigo Martins, also a professor in the Department of Materials Science and Coordinator of CENIMAT, who received the award in 2025, become the first couple to receive this honour, a joint recognition of decades of work dedicated to science and to bringing Portugal, Europe and China closer together.
The NOVA FCT professor will help shape the debate on higher education and science in Portugal and on mathematics education in Europe.
Of the 103 applications submitted with NOVA FCT as host institution, 13 were proposed for funding. This corresponds to a provisional success rate of 12.6%.
From recent graduates to those who studied in the hangars and huts of the 1980s, the same feeling was echoed again and again: "Those were the best years of our lives" and "we took friends for life from here."
