Summary and main takeaways

PAPS held its XVII Forum last June at Harvard University, Boston, integrated in the “Month of Portugal” celebrations. The Forum brought together PAPS members and other Portuguese experts in diverse areas, to discuss the role of interdisciplinarity and international collaboration in the global innovation wave, with particular emphasis on the contributions of Portugal and the Portuguese diaspora in an era of fast technological advances. This year’s Forum also marked PAPS’ 20th anniversary and had the special participation of former PAPS presidents and founders, who revisited the history and progress of PAPS since its beginnings.

 

The Portuguese in a globalized world

 “Portugal is everywhere you can find the Portuguese”
– João Vale de Almeida, EU Ambassador to the UN

 Portugal is an old and history-rich country, but is also very vibrant and creative, and currently people all around the world want to know what is happening there – was one of the key messages of Ambassador of Portugal to the US Domingos Fezas Vital when opening the Forum, and who also emphasized that Portugal can learn a lot from the US’ dynamic civil

Manuela Ferro, Vice-president of Country Services and Operations Policy at the World Bank, explained how just learning different languages and cultures can immediately change our way of thinking, opening up new associations in our brain. Manuela Ferro also highlighted how suited Portuguese are to this task: “We are resourceful problem-solvers who come from a passionate culture, and are better able to understand others.”

“Portugal needs something the US has: a large movement of people coming through it, immigrants who come and go, to introduce new ideas and take ours with them.”
– Alexandre Quintanilha, President of the Parliamentary Commission for Education and Science

 

Interdisciplinarity will be more necessary in every profession

 “Knowledge in all domains is the most important asset you will have.”
– Alexandre Quintanilha

Keynote speaker Professor Alexandre Quintanilha, President of the Parliamentary Commission for Education and Science in Portugal, expressed how much interdisciplinary impacted his career: “The most important year of my university training was when I studied two new languages and philosophy.” Within this context Alexandre Quintanilha also reminded the audience of the importance of keeping a skeptical mind: “Beware when specialists from other fields use terms you don’t understand, because people love to impress others with complicated words. We need to go beyond that.”

Silvia Benedito, Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, exemplified the need to bring together architecture, socio-economic awareness and human psychology in the design of urban spaces. Planned careful rehabilitation of dilapidated public areas in a city can completely re-energize pedestrian traffic and even revitalize commerce: “You need to include relaxed attractive spaces, as well as places that can provide people with experiences, so they will stay and spend more time there.”

Manuela Ferro stressed that modern policy-making requires professionals with training in diverse fields, to face unknown challenges and engage in creative decision-making. Seeing the big picture, using emotional intelligence to frame different perspectives and having a multicultural mindset will be more and more critical.

Francesco Marconi, Chief of Research and Development at the Wall Street Journal, emphasized how the filter of perception affects the transmission of ideas: preconceived notions people may have about something often do not correlate with its potential as an innovation.

“The power of storytelling changes how effective transmitting a message can be.”
– Francesco Marconi

 

Portugal has come a long way; where do we sail from here?

 Keynote speaker Ambassador João Vale de Almeida, reminded us that Portugal has, for a generation now, integrated more and more of its foreign-trained returnees.

This view was charted by Carlos Fiolhais, Professor at University of Coimbra and science communicator, who presented data on how much Portuguese science grew in the last decades (available in the public Pordata platform). He dismissed perceptions that it has been unsuccessful: quite the contrary! Notably women have overtaken men in the number of working scientists and PhDs awarded, something very few countries around the world have managed to achieve. Portugal is not among the highest in scientific output in Europe, but it is solidly in the average. Portugal still needs to invest more however in the scientific private sector:

“… to produce patents, innovation and new products. More PhDs must be hired by companies: most are still employed only by the state or higher education institutions.”
– Carlos Fiolhais

Nuno Fontes, Executive Director of Process Science at Boehringer-Ingelheim California, stressed that the heart of any company is its people: if they are the right ones for the job, they will themselves do the right thing, help out and promote success of those around them. Managers must not be afraid to hire those who are smarter and better than them, and must always be willing to learn. This approach prevents the creeping of mediocrity and will ensure talent is retained.

One conclusion of the engaging debate that followed, was that Portugal has successfully implemented scientific and technical training, is embracing innovations, and has become more open to foreign ideas. What is still left, to power this wave even further, is for cross-discipline dialog to become more mainstream: many specialists are still too suspicious of non-expert’s opinions, and cross-discipline training is still only starting to be encouraged in universities. Once Portuguese professionals start interacting more with areas outside of their expertise and synergizing efforts, innovation and value creation will take them to the next step.

 

The Portuguese innovate across the world, and in Portugal itself

 “Technological innovation requires skill, and teaching skills to others.”
As Paulo Ferreira, Professor at the University of Texas at Austin, USA, IST and INL, reminded us, the transfer of skill and knowledge was present in all the technological revolutions of mankind. We are now experiencing the 4th industrial revolution, where the digital, nanotechnological and biological communicate with each other: 3D printing of organs, new nanomaterials with new properties, the Internet of Things, molecules that can build things by self-assembly, micro-gears, among others.

Current Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology is changing how journalism can be done: as Francesco Marconi presented to a stunned audience, algorithms can now take information from lists and databases, and automatically build a journalistic article in prose that people can read and understand, freeing journalists the time to focus on investigation as well as stories that require more nuance and artistry.

Heart diseases are a growing public health concern, however technology is keeping up at good speed, told us Alexandra Gonçalves, Senior Medical Director and CMO of Cardiology at Philips Ultrasound Business Group. Alexandra Gonçalves described how the medical community used to believe that artificial heart valve implantation through catheters was impossible: yet at this moment it is already being done in lower-risk patients, and implementation is increasing. Even modern ultrasound devices are now just handheld devices connected to a cell phone and controlled through a mobile app. The AI revolution has sped up ultrasound analysis, where 3D models are now made automatically from the ultrasound without requiring a specialist to interpret the images.

 

Career advice for the professional future

Alexandra Gonçalves challenged the audience not to be afraid to take up difficult challenges and side-projects, as they can result in unexpected benefits for one’s career. Nuno Fontes recommended that one must be curious and unafraid to ask questions in order to see opportunities in non-obvious situations or chance encounters. Our choices, behaviors and human interactions are crucial to professional success and to building a sustainable work environment.

Paulo Ferreira highlighted the skills that will be required for the society of the future: problem-solving, emotional intelligence, and ability to contextualize information between different sectors: academia, industry, government and civil society.

“We, who have benefitted from an education and the investments of past generations, are their legacy, and must step up to the challenge.”
– Ambassador João Vale de Almeida

 

20 years of PAPS

 Minister Manuel Heitor and current and past PAPS presidents (Silvia Curado, João Ribas, Raul Saraiva and Paulo Ferreira) discussed the origins, achievements and future role of PAPS.

 Resulting from of a coffee-shop conversation that took place 20 years ago, PAPS was founded and immediately embraced by the Embassy of Portugal in the US , which opened its doors for members to engage with official institutions, as described by Paulo Ferreira, one of PAPS founders. PAPS founder Nuno Vasconcelos and former president Tiago Outeiro, João Íncio and Nuno Vasconcelos, shared video messages with the audience, expressing their pride on how far PAPS has come and how vital it still is 20 years later.

The Minister for Science, Technology and Higher Education, Professor Manuel Heitor, a supporter and friend of PAPS since its beginnings, discussed how since PAPS was founded, during the second generation of portuguese graduates abroad, several of them have now returned to Portugal as leaders and professors. They, through FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia) funding, have been able to supervise their own PhD students and form their own groups in Portugal. Currently, PAPS also integrates the third generation of graduates abroad, which now also include innovators and value creators, in addition to academics.

Former PAPS presidents Raul Saraiva and João Ribas highlighted PAPS achievements to date, such as the impactful PAPSummer internship programme, the PAPS welcome info packages for the newly arrived (for a soft landing in the US and Canada), and partnerships with local portuguese-american communities as well as with GPS (Global Portuguese Scientists).

 The Forum closed with the words of Minister Manuel Heitor and the hopes that Portugal has for its graduate diaspora. Minister Manuel Heitor also charted the investments that Portugal has made and is currently planning to do in science and technology.

Thank you all who attended the Forum 2018, our speakers and sponsors.

We hope to see you at our next PAPS event!

By Nuno Miguel C. Martins
Photography: Dário F. Jesus