Revisiting Universities: The Challenge of the 21st Century

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Published: Mar 9, 2017
DOI: https://doi.org/10.24840/2183-0606_004.004_0001
Issue: Vol. 4 No. 4 (2016)

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Anne-Laure Mention
João José Pinto Ferreira
Faculdade de Engenharia - Universidade do Porto / INESC TEC
Marko Torkkeli

Abstract

Delivering impact is nowadays on top of the agenda of universities, worldwide. But what exactly does that mean? Universities' primary mission is to educate the young generations, by providing them with basic knowledge on a wide array of topics and disciplines and most importantly, by training them how to continuously learn - learn by doing, by reflecting, by challenging facts and perceptions, critically and constructively. Yet, the education mission, which can be seen as a long term investment from nations into the development and nurturing of their capabilities, competitiveness and growth, is increasingly complemented and supplemented by another role: supporting economic growth in the short run. This pressure to generate and disseminate actionable knowledge, and support its application and immediate implementation into real life, contemporary businesses, entails a tremendous shift in the way universities operate, both in terms of time and space. And this undeniably creates tensions: it is common knowledge that universities and private sector firms are not sync in the way they think, act and deliver. (...)

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Author Biography

João José Pinto Ferreira, Faculdade de Engenharia - Universidade do Porto / INESC TEC

Born in 1964, João José Pinto Ferreira got is Licenciatura in Electrical Engineering and Computers at Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto (FEUP) in1987; MSc Electrical Engineering and Computers at FEUP in 1991; PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computers at FEUP in 1995; Habilitation (“Agregação”) in Industrial Engineering and Management in April, 2011. Positions Held: 1987-1995, FEUP, Assistant Lecturer; 1995 – 2003: FEUP, Assistant Professor; 2003-today: FEUP, Associate Professor. At FEUP (1997-2000) also he was Member of the Executive Board of the Electrical Engineering Department and since 2004 Director of the Master Degree of Innovation and Technological Entrepreneurship. From October 2004 to July 2007 assumed a joint coordination of INESC Porto Unit of Information and Communication Systems. In January 2008 moved to the newly created Department in FEUP, “Industrial Engineering and Management Department”. Responsible since March 2007 for the pre-incubation activities at UPTec (U.Porto business incubator), where, since Sep/2008, he has been coordinating the STARTUP Program from Junior Achievement at U.Porto. Teaching Activities: Professor at FEUP in Information Systems and Innovation & Entrepreneurship. Research Activity: in 1988 starts his collaboration as researcher at Institute of Engineering Systems and Computers (INESC). His R&D activity, developed 1st at INESC and later at INESC Porto, started in 1988 and concentrated in areas such as: Enterprise Integration, supporting Architectures and Life-cycle. Executable Models. Enterprise Modeling. João José is member of Portuguese Engineers Society, of the IFIP WG5.12, Working Group on Architectures for Enterprise Integration and Expert to the Comité Européen de Normalisation, CEN / TC 310 / WG1, Advanced Manufacturing Technologies, Systems Architecture. Along with his R&D activity he assumed different roles in several R&D european projects: Participation as work-package leader and project leader in ESPRIT 5478 SHOP-CONTROL as workpackage leader in ESPRIT 8865 Real-I-CIM, as expert in ESPRIT 9245 PASSE, as work-package leader in ESPRIT 20544 X-CITTIC. Participation as Project Coordinator and Technical Manager of COBIP UR 4002 - SECTOR 6 do TELEMATICS APPLICATIONS PROGRAMME (Jan98/Dec/99). Project; Project Coordinator and Technical Manager of the DAMASCOS project IST-1999-11850 (Jan2000/Dec2001). Technical Coordinator the European projects B-MAN and MyFashion.eu (Apr2002/Set2004). Publications: João José has so far published more than 60 scientific publications, including Journals, Conferences, book chapters with peer review. He was also Guest Editor at the International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing and editor of a book published by Kluwer Academic Publisher entitled: “e-Manufacturing: Business Paradigms and Supporting Technologies" (Hardcover) ISBN-10: 1402076541. He has so far been responsible for the supervision of several PhD’s and MSc’s. Business Roles: General Assembly President of Tomorrow Options Microelectronics S.A. since March 2007. General Assembly Secretary of “Projecto Construir - Projecto de intervenção Social” since October 2009.