The Department of Information Science and Technology (DCTI) was created in 1988, and is one of the three departments that make up the School of Technology and Architecture of the University Institute of Lisbon (Iscte). Currently, DCTI is the largest department of Iscte, with 59 faculty members with PhDs. Despite being a young department in the national arena, the faculty of DCTI is responsible for successfully creating several of the pioneering programmes of the Iscte School of Technology and Architecture (ISTA), namely the programme in Computer Science and Business Administration, created in 1989, and the programmes in Telecommunications and Computer Engineering, created in 1998 as the first of its kind in Portugal.

The DCTI faculty has expertise mainly in the fields of Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Information Systems, Electronics and Telecommunications, and is responsible for teaching most courses in the 12 technology-based undergraduate and graduate programs of ISTA. The average employment rate for these programmes is one of the best in Portugal, exceeding 99%. This high level of employability is the result of an ongoing effort by the DCTI faculty members to adjust the curriculum and content of the various technological programmes at ISTA in view of the curent labor market and the best practices at the international level. For this purpose, the faculty frequently consults the main employers of their graduates in order to understand their needs and reflect those needs in changes to the curricula of the programmes. In achieving this objective, the proximity of the faculty members to companies as well as to the major national and international professional associations in the field, such as the Portuguese Engineering Association (OE), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), is of the utmost importance.

Besides the undergraduate and graduate programs of ISTA, the DCTI faculty is also responsible for teaching several other, more general courses in the area of Information Science and Technology in programmes lead by the other schools at Iscte.

In addition to its pedagogical quality, which is recognized both nationally and internationally, DCTI's faculty also pursue high-caliber research and development activities in their respective areas in some of the most prestigious research centers in the country, including the Instituto de Telecomunicações (IT), the Centro de Investigação em Sistemas e Tecnologias de Informação Avançados (ADETTI) and the Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores (INESC).

The global recognition of the pedagogical and scientific capacities of the DCTI faculty is demonstrated by the Department's numerous  partnerships with other universities and companies (domestic and international), which exist for the purposes of both student exchange, with programmes like IAESTE and ERASMUS, and national and international research and development projects, which are typically done in partnership with other universities and companies.

The high-caliber scientific and pedagogical skills of the DCTI faculty members ensures an advanced and stimulating learning environment in all courses that they teach, allowing students to develop their capabilities to the fullest through a solid and modernized training, recognized both at national and international levels, in order to be able to face their professional futures with confidence.

Bráulio Alturas
Head of Department of Information Science and Technology