Instituto Superior Técnico
Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) is a school of engineering, part of the Universidade de Lisboa (University of Lisbon). Founded in 1911, IST is the largest and most prestigious school of engineering in Portugal. It is a public school with a large degree of scientific and financial autonomy. Its alumni have held prominent positions in both the private and public sectors of Portuguese society, having produced numerous CEOs, government ministers, 2 Prime Ministers of Portugal, and 1 Secretary-General of the United Nations.
IST, since its foundation, has been the largest school of engineering, science and technology in Portugal, at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. It has three campi, all located in the Greater Lisbon area (Alameda in Lisbon, Taguspark in Oeiras and Tecnológico e Nuclear Campus in Loures), and consists of ten Departments that are responsible for teaching the undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. Each Department is organised in sections, which group together specific subjects within its scientific area. In addition, the laboratories of the several Departments are an important source of support to the teaching and research activities carried out at IST.
IST offers 18 undergraduate programmes attended by more than 6,000 students, covering a wide range of areas of knowledge, including not only all the traditional engineering specializations, but also other modern areas such as Biomedical Engineering, Aerospace and Physics Engineering. Over 4,500 students are enrolled in 33 masters, 31 doctoral and several specialized programmes. IST has produced 1,292 Ph.D. holders.
IST is also actively involved in several networks and international programmes to promote student mobility, both at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Through a large number of agreements with other institutions worldwide, IST participates in more than 20 Dual Master programmes, and joint PhD programmes with MIT, CMU, UT-Austin and EPFL.
IST benefits from an IBM supercomputer built in 2007, which is one of the most powerful in Portugal (1.6 TFLOPS as of 2007).
