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To mark the fiftieth anniversary of our institution, Expresso will publish a monthly article by researchers and professors from Iscte.
All articles have been translated.
Ricardo Paes Mamede
Economist, director of Iscte-Sintra – School of Digital Technologies, Economy and Society
Expresso, 09.12.2022
Digital technologies give us more access to data and information, much of which we provide ourselves. How we use this data deserves closer attention.
We constantly share information: what we like, who we interact with, where we are, our expressions, body movements, and biometric data. Companies collect, buy, and sell this data and cross-reference it with other sources. They analyse it to understand our habits, values, preferences, health, finances, desires, and fears. The aim is usually to predict our behaviour and influence our choices.
Most people do not seem concerned about losing privacy. We knowingly or unknowingly reveal parts of our lives once considered private. We value services we access, often free, in return for our information. We trust or hope our data will be used safely. We often realise privacy's value only when its absence affects us, and its impact on society remains uncertain.
A clear aspect of this change is our dependence on digital technologies. This is not due to a natural urge to stare at a screen, swipe for images and sounds, and post likes and emojis. The business of digital platforms relies on our time—and they use what they know about us to keep us engaged longer.
It is not only those who live from advertising who can manipulate us. Edward Snowden's denunciation of the surveillance of millions of citizens by the US National Security Agency, the social credit system in China (where each citizen gains or loses rights for what they do in public or in private) or the Cambridge Analyitica case (in which detailed information about citizens was used to influence the voting intentions that led to Brexit or Trump's victory) serve as a reminder that post-privacy life extends to increasingly less innocuous spheres of our societies.
The potential advantages of digital technologies are manifold, no doubt. Its risks also include social isolation, addictive behaviours, the reproduction of various forms of discrimination, increased inequalities, the concentration of power, manipulation of public opinion, or increased social polarisation. Losing privacy is not just exposing ourselves beyond reason. It is to transform our way of life beyond what we imagine. We still need to discuss whether this is really what we want — and what we can do to avoid it.
Luís Capucha
Teacher and Researcher at Iscte
Expresso, 28.10.2022
Iscte was a newborn making its way in several areas of science and higher education in Portugal when the country was reborn. In 1972, Iscte gave a precursor sign of what was to come. And what came was democracy and freedom, and with them peace and the desire for progress and well-being. From desire to action was a small step, and with the revolution also came the first social policies, still timid, but strong enough to lay the roots of the welfare state.
Under the impetus of preparations for accession to the EEC, which took place in 1986, the institutional and normative structures for the main social policies in the areas of health, social protection and security, and education were created (in some cases, building on previous political initiatives). In the following years, the systems grew and became more effective. And, once again with the stimulus of participation in European dynamics, they diversified and differentiated later, near the end of the last century, innovating both in the logics of action (concepts such as active social policies, participation, partnerships, etc.) and in the problems and audiences targeted were born or popularised.
Throughout these 50 years of profound change, several Iscte professors and researchers have consistently stood out in political action across all these areas. From those who fought for democracy, development, the modernisation of the economy and society before 25 April, to the many who held and continue to hold positions of great responsibility in the Government, in companies, in Public Administration and in society.
It will be easy to identify areas where the country has moved more slowly and problems that have emerged in the meantime. Low remuneration for work and precariousness (of employment and other forms) are two of them. We can also mention housing, justice and domestic violence, among some other problems that persist. We can and should also be dissatisfied with the pause the Portuguese economy has experienced in the new century in terms of convergence and the consequent capacity to sustain new and better wage, social, cultural, and environmental policies. Meanwhile, climate change, threats to peace and democracy, and the scientific and digital revolutions must also be tackled. And this requires knowledge, critical capacity, innovation and new skills.
It is therefore with great expectation that we see the Iscte community and its new protagonists, committed and mobilised, continue to contribute to the resolution of these old and new problems. Always using a formula that distinguishes the institution: the combination of scientific rigour in the study of the questions that society asks the scientific community, with the appreciation of the effort to transfer knowledge and qualify students. In an environment of worship of freedom, plurality, solidarity, tolerance, responsibility and openness to society and its problems. Values and attitudes that are part of Iscte — Instituto Universitário de Lisboa's DNA and will continue to guide us in the future.
Alexandra Paio
Professor and Researcher at Iscte
Expresso, 07.10.2022
Technological changes, through the use of computational tools and processes, have influenced and altered the design of architectural and urban solutions by architects. Since the 60s of the last century, when the first steps in information technologies were taken, digital media have been incorporated into architectural practice, launching new ways of dialoguing with society and the construction industry.
The industrial revolution 4.0 requires automation and optimisation through machine learning systems, combined with robotics and 3D printing, to address and develop innovative solutions to the complex global problems facing the planet. At the same time, society 5.0 requires a human-centred vision that balances technological advancement with the solution of social problems of inclusion and social justice.
In this context, digital innovation practices emerge as a response to achieve the objectives of sustainable digital transition in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) sector. Architecture began its transformation, first by leveraging new construction techniques and the elaboration of experimental architectural spatial forms, then by developing ubiquitous technologies and generative algorithms, and nowadays by introducing advanced real-time computational processes for measurement, quantification, and simulation.
However, in Portugal, the Praxis of Architecture, its methods, traditions and know-how are still at the centre of passionate debates about being or not being digital. This dualistic vision continues to hinder fruitful transversal contamination across architecture's various domains.
Disciplinary relevance cannot fail to embrace a set of skills indispensable to the research and development of new processes and products, through computing, sensing, immersive simulation and artificial intelligence. It is not a rupture but the historical continuity of technological evolution, reflected in the tools available in each era. Architecture treatises and manifestos have always discussed technological advances grounded in innovation and experimentation, responding to the social, economic, political, cultural, and aesthetic challenges of the time.
The dynamics of interdisciplinary innovation that characterise Iscte allow Architecture to play a central role in the national context in innovation and leadership in the AEC sector. The laboratory component plays a strategic role in experimentation and validation of results across the three laboratories: digital fabrication (Vitruvius FABLAB), Mixed Reality Lab, and IoTLab.
Iscte's bet on new one-year professional master's degrees is another response to the new demands of the labour market and the urgent need for professional training. Collaboration protocols with municipalities, architecture, and industry offices have enabled adults to participate in programs to update and retrain skills. Iscte contributes to the training of architects able to face the digital future.
José Crespo de Carvalho
Professor and president of Iscte Executive Education
Expresso, 12.08.2022
Three contemporary examples are emblematic in illustrating the importance of logistics and operations management in the world around us. However, if nothing more could be said, the vaccination process we have been going through, the development of last-mile deliveries, and the global disruption of supply chains are very strong examples of their criticality.
Classic issues such as queues, installed and used capacity, planning, and booking or reserving a slot (place) are and were so critical that no one dares question the importance of logistics and operations management. Note that the vaccinated person is scheduled, attends, enters a queue, presents his data at a reception desk, waits again, is always treated on a first-in, first-out basis, is inoculated, is passed to a recovery phase, waits again, and then leaves. The process, because the vast majority of the Portuguese population went through it, is self-explanatory. And it is not a healthy process except when a vaccine enters someone's arm. Everything else is logistics and cold chain operations.
The last mile, encompassing deliveries to customers' homes, has undergone a colossal development. And give an example with restaurants, because we don't even need to go further, with all the consumables, and not only that, we can have them at home as a result of e-commerce. Platforms that operate with restaurants, end customers, and couriers should be understood as working within logistical systems for picking, transport, and delivery. Essential from the point of view of logistics and operations management, including forecasting, planning, routing, deliveries and effective receptions. Predicting the quantities to be sought, planning the assortment and the capacities installed in the kitchen (and we have more and more dark kitchens delivering, i.e., kitchens that do not have a restaurant room but only work outside, for the end customer or for other kitchens – to simplify).
Finally, the example of the disruption of supply chains that we have been witnessing. Stopped seaports, factories that interrupt production, absence of workforce, empty containers poorly positioned in global terms and, in general, absence of supply or disruption of supply in relation to demand levels. This phenomenon has disrupted supply chains, led to shortages of a wide variety of products that do not reach destination markets and, at the same time, increased prices. The markets are nervous, and the reflexes are affecting global stock exchanges, creating volatility. Geopolitical tensions and other threats from stubborn or closed markets impact these same chains. Health issues arising from the pandemic affect all these examples equally.
These and other topics have been deepened for years by ISCTE – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa over the past 50 years of its development. First with the most classic operations management, then with all the logistics and supply chain management topics.
(*) Peter Drucker
Sandra Marques Pereira
Researcher at Iscte
Expresso, 05.08.2022
The creation of the Secretary of State for Housing in 2017 is inseparable from the political assumption of the affordable housing problem: housing for segments of the population with intermediate incomes, a euphemism among us. In the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, there are 6 municipalities where only the 20% of households with higher incomes would be able to rent a house of 80m2, in the municipality where they live, with an effort rate of less than or equal to 35%: Almada, Amadora, Cascais, Lisbon, Odivelas and Oeiras (LxHabidata).
In 2018, the New Generation of Housing Policies, aware of the social spread of the problem, brought a renewed ambition to housing policies: to broaden its audience, in addition to the most needy, to the middle classes - a generalist and no longer residual policy. In 2019, even before the legislative elections, housing rose to the ministry.
These three milestones illustrate the national government's desire to regain the protagonism lost from the 1980s onwards, following the extinction of the Housing Development Fund. But now in this generalist mode.
After some measures launched by the Institute for Housing and Urban Rehabilitation/IHRU, which, although relevant, fell short of expectations, the RRP brought funding for an affordable housing policy with some expression: 774.8 M€, in loans, for 6800 houses, an objective already compromised by the rise in construction prices. Of these 774.8 M€, the central State keeps almost 80% for the direct promotion of 5210 houses by the IHRU. In addition, the IHRU's promotion of affordable housing is territorially unequal: the houses it builds will be on its land, so municipalities that concentrate them will benefit. Of the almost 2000 accommodations that the IHRU has already submitted to the competition for architectural projects, the overwhelming majority are in Almada and Setúbal.
A different situation is the PRR funding for housing the most needy, concentrated in the 1st Right Program, to be implemented mainly by municipalities. This partition of the RRP's investment in housing suggests a dualisation of responsibilities: the central State concentrates resources for implementing housing policies for the middle classes, and municipalities concentrate those for the most vulnerable groups.
The new protagonism that the government claims in affordable housing immediately raises the issue of the articulation between national and municipal policies, as complex as the geographical diversity of problems and their concentration in Metropolitan Areas: it is here that the greatest inequalities in access to housing are concentrated, not only between the richest and the poorest, but between the richest and the rest, the so-called middle classes for whom affordable housing is intended. But there are other issues: from the IHRU's ability to manage its new thousands of accommodations to the development of other measures aimed at this generalist policy. And if regulation is important in this matter, it is more complex than it seems: due to the side effects of certain measures (e.g. rent freezes), the extreme economic dependence on real estate investment and tourism or because the internationalisation of the housing market catapults the sector's policies, especially regulation, to the European level.
Jorge Costa and Sérgio Matos
Iscte Researchers
Expresso, 01.07.2022
The extraordinarily low cost, adaptability and durability of plastic have made it a kind of perfect material, and its production, especially for single-use, has grown exponentially since the 50s of the twentieth century.
However, while durability is one of its strengths, it has also proven to be a major weakness, leading to a significant portion of the planet currently contaminated by these long-lasting materials.
More recently, at the Oceans Conference in Lisbon, we have been alerted to the contamination of marine waters by plastics. Worse, with microplastics.
Plastic has become the largest source of marine pollution worldwide (60-80%). The International Maritime Organisation even estimates that, by 2050, the amount of plastic in the oceans will surpass that of fish.
The larger blocks, called macroplastics, are a danger to marine life when fish and other animals become entangled in them or eat them. But it is the pieces measuring less than 5 millimetres, the microplastics resulting from the fragmentation of the larger ones, that cause the greatest concern. Its ingestion by fish has harmful effects on animals and, through the food chain, on humans. The great challenge for humanity is detecting these materials, and it is estimated that about 99% of the plastics that should be floating in the sea are simply missing.
Marine litter detection is currently carried out from the coast by ships, aircraft, uncrewed aerial vehicles, or by a limited number of satellites. Except for the latter, the geographical coverage of these platforms is very limited. A global monitoring of marine litter drifting on the ocean surface would be extremely useful for better understanding the mechanisms of plastic transport and degradation and, thus, for inferring relevant data on pollution on the ocean floor. However, there is still no global system with these characteristics, as existing satellite missions were not specifically designed for marine litter detection and classification. Most of the current research focuses on optical satellite detection in the visible and infrared spectra. However, these techniques are hampered by poor weather and low light, preventing continuous reading.
The most effective alternative may be to equip satellites with microwave equipment, which is relatively immune to atmospheric interference and offers detection and classification capabilities far superior to those of optical instruments. It is on this front that Iscte researchers work, as part of a team from the Institute of Telecommunications (IT), in a research project funded by the European Space Agency (ESA) that aims to identify the most effective techniques for using microwaves to locate marine litter.
Catarina Roseta Palma
professor and director of Sustainability at Iscte
Expresso, 27.05.2022
In June 1972, in Stockholm, the UN held the first conference dedicated to the environment. The signs that human pressure on natural resources was already very clear were evident. At this conference, World Environment Day (5 June) was created, the United Nations Environment Program was established, and the foundations for collective action in nature protection were laid. Five decades later, the pressure has increased. We are now aware that we are experiencing three global crises simultaneously: the climate crisis, with the continued accumulation of greenhouse gases, of anthropogenic origin, in the atmosphere; the biodiversity crisis, with the reduction of habitats and the acceleration of the rate of extinction of species; and also the pollution crisis, which includes the biochemical imbalances of the nitrogen and phosphorus cycles and also emerging contaminants whose impacts are not even properly studied. It seems that not everyone has yet realised that planet Earth, our common home, has limits...
As an example, it should be noted that worldwide, human activities remain extremely dependent on fossil fuels, which, according to data from the International Energy Agency, ensured 87% of primary energy production in 1973 and 81% in 2019... especially distressing data if we take into account that the total amount of energy produced has almost tripled. As for biodiversity, none of the United Nations' 2020 goals has been fully achieved. There is a succession of news about the collapse of ecosystems and the disappearance of species. What are we waiting for? Will we be able to do it differently in the coming years?
Global environmental problems affect everyone, but they also require everyone's effort. It is not worth saying that my country, my company, my institution or my family is not responsible for the disasters and that others will have to change. That is not the best time now because we are in a pandemic, and there is a war. The urgency of sustainability is real and concerns every one of us. No one can be left out.
It was also 50 years ago that Iscte was founded, to contribute to the country's economic and social development. Much work has been done to this end, including, more recently, the environmental component. More than a decade ago, Iscte created the multidisciplinary master's degree in Environmental and Sustainability Studies. We also implemented a sustainability program that, in 2018, led to recognition as the first Portuguese higher education institution to obtain environmental certification under the ISO14001 standard. Is it enough? Of course not. We must continue to work with the entire community to reduce our negative impacts and enhance the positive ones, being part of the solutions, not just the problems.
It is urgent to change the way we think about human society as distinct from nature, because we exist only in the context of the life around us. Each plant, each fungus, each insect, in short, each living being, deserves our attention and respect. Natural processes are incredibly complex and must be protected and regenerated. If we don't understand this, we won't prosper for the next 50 years.
Luísa Pedroso de Lima
President of the Scientific Council of Iscte
Expresso, 29.04.2022
They say it's an African proverb: alone we go faster, but together we go further. I don't know if it is. However, its content mirrors many of the results achieved in research in my area of study, Social Psychology. Collaborative solutions that are built on diversity are the most stable and consensual. It is true with regard to the activity of human groups and, in my view, it is also true with regard to the development of science. The problems we face today are too complex to be approached from a single scientific perspective, and the great progress we have seen in areas such as health, to limit myself to one specific case, is the product of collaboration between disciplines. In the case of chronic pain, for example, advancing knowledge requires the joint work of experts in medical sciences, as well as in imaging technologies, cellular electrophysiology, neurochemistry, genetics, psychology, sociology, and cultural studies.
It was because I believed in the potential of interdisciplinarity that I committed, within the scope of the Scientific Council of Iscte, to the construction of a set of structures dedicated to the development of interdisciplinary research. These are spaces for sharing where researchers, teachers and PhD students can meet to work on the same themes, combining knowledge from different disciplines to seek to achieve innovative results in training, intervention and, of course, research.
The first of these spaces, dedicated to Health (Iscte-Saúde), enables the creation of frameworks for dialogue and application in this area, grounded in our multidisciplinary diversity. The case of digital health is exactly one of the areas in which a societal perspective, linking the life sciences, social sciences, and technological sciences, can contribute not only to scientific knowledge but also to economic development. The other interdisciplinary space created was the SocioDigital Lab for Public Policies, an Associate Laboratory supported by FCT. In this, the various research units of Iscte have come together to produce applied research that, by combining the contributions of artificial intelligence with those of the social sciences, will enable the development of public policies grounded in scientific evidence.
Finally, we decided to build the Centre for Valorisation and Technology Transfer (CVTT, Iscte Knowledge and Innovation), a building that materialises this perspective of meeting and collaboration between different disciplines and perspectives. It is an innovative place intended to host all of Iscte's research units, laboratories, observatories and doctoral courses. It was designed from scratch to enable and facilitate dialogue, not only between different disciplines, but also between the academic and scientific universe and society. It will enable collaboration and co-creation of projects involving digital technologies and behavioural and social sciences, while remaining open to social actors to address the challenges posed by societies, including those faced by the city in which we operate, Lisbon, and its metropolitan area. It represents a huge qualitative leap, only possible because we believe that together we will go further.
Luís Nunes
professor and researcher at Iscte
Expresso, 28.03.2022
The application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in improving decision-making in Administration and Public Policies is a topic of increasing importance. Unlike the facet of AI that is often discussed (the possibility of creating human-level intelligence), many of the tools associated with this area have practical and useful applications in the immediate future: the ability to improve training advice to job candidates, the possibility of semi-automatic triage of complaints, the risk analysis of projects using public funds, among many others.
The Artificial Intelligence Competence Center for Public Administration (AI>AP), which Iscte is developing, aims to: raise awareness of the Public Administration (PA) for the use of AI tools; the practice of using real PA cases in the classroom and in master's dissertations in the area of Information Sciences and Technologies; and the accountability, by the academy, of the use of data and discoveries made to the entities that collaborate with us. As such, this centre functions as a living laboratory for the PA to support the discovery and testing of innovation models applicable across various domains of action, with an impact on the efficiency, effectiveness and quality of public services.
Innovation through technology entails infrastructure costs, exploration and understanding, and data collection, processing, and use processes, which it is not always able to bear on its own in PA. Academia can help overcome this initial barrier by exploring multiple approaches to the available datasets and finding different ways to value them. The processes should be systematically documented and the results presented to the PA for possible further adoption, supporting the processes of public service delivery.
Many institutions have realised the advantages of this type of cooperation and projects, and there are already, throughout the country, occasional examples of cooperation between the PA and academia. The AP initiates some of these, as is the inspiring example of using data from the Lisbon City Council (CML) to address challenges that university students have been tackling for several years.
Iscte students are being trained to address the same digital challenges posed by the need to value the information the PA holds. Its preparation includes an ethical and responsible dimension, ensuring that the transformation of this information into knowledge supports decision-makers while remaining fair, equitable and transparent. To achieve these objectives, the use of real data and problems is of the utmost importance. The education of a generation trained to know how to take advantage of these technologies and, at the same time, aware of the challenges of managing and administering public assets for a common good and for respect for public entities and all citizens, is a step on the right path to a better and more sustainable future.
Tiago Fernandes
Department of Political Science and Public Policy
Expresso, 25.02.2022
Portuguese democracy has gone through three major phases. Between 1974 and 1986, the democratic institutions that still regulate political life today were established. In 1986, the entry into the European Communities reinforced the consensus between PS and PSD on the economic model and the welfare state, alternating these two parties in government and excluding the radical left. This period ends in 2010-11, when, under the impact of the Great Recession, a neoliberal alliance is formed between PSD and CDS, breaking with the social-democratic and Christian-democratic traditions of the right. And the left forms, for the first time, an explicit alliance, initiated during the 2011-13 cycle of anti-austerity protest, in which social movements, trade unions, PCP, BE, and a part of the PS lay the foundations of an alternative bloc, enabling the minority governance of the PS in 2015.
The absolute majority of the PS in 2022 is the latest episode of this turn to the left, which is surprising, given the decadence of socialist parties across Europe. But it is a direct result of the memory of the revolution, still a common language of the left, and of the rejection of austerity by the PS. The "Contraption" deepened the quality of Portuguese democracy by allowing the political integration of the radical left and the social groups it represents and by governing the centre and the left simultaneously.
The great beneficiary of this was the PS. The "Contraption" changed the political culture of the electorate, which is mostly left-wing but prefers gradualist reforms, penalising the PCP and the BE in the last elections after they interrupted the government cycle. The absolute majority is also due to the defeat of the PSD's centrist strategy. With a relatively united left already occupying the centre, only a project with clear ideas on the right can one day win. For its part, the PS has unique conditions to carry out a reformist program on the left that combines reducing inequalities, deepening democracy, and economic modernisation. This is in a European context that is more permissive regarding budgetary constraints and more favourable to public investment.
The paradox is that, for this, the PS needs the collaboration of the unions and the radical left. A parliamentary majority is not enough; a social majority is needed. All the more so because, after the defeat of Rui Rio's centrist strategy, the right, which has grown in the number of votes and in the young electorate, will sooner or later become a mobilising movement. That will certainly be ultra-liberal. But it can also include Chega, now more robust. To assert itself, the PS alternative thus has to overcome the defensive position that was the "Contraption", to constitute itself as the unifying pole of all the progressive forces of Portuguese society. If it achieves this, we could see, in the next decade, a kind of South European version of the Scandinavian socialist hegemony that has existed since the 1930s.
