Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS wishes to motivate and award research of practical utility through the attribution of Prizes and Distinctions to students and researchers that contribute to the philosophy behind the FhP-AICOS vision of ‘Proposing Futures. Impacting lives.’ and its mission to create ‘Remarkable Technology, Easy to Use.’
The Fraunhofer Portugal Challenge is an idea contest promoted by Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS with the objective of motivating and rewarding research of practical utility, through the attribution of scientific prizes to MSc students and researchers from Portuguese higher education institutions in the scientific areas of: Human-Centred Design; Artificial Intelligence; and Cyber-physical systems.
The Challenge includes two Scientific Prizes categories:
a) Master Thesis Award: the best ideas presented by MSc students and researchers that were developed having ‘Research of Practical Utility’ in mind and are based on graduation theses;
b) Student Award: the best ideas presented by MSc students, that do not need to be associated with any scientific work (e.g. master thesis).
The Challenge is open to all individual applicants (hereafter the ‘Participant’) that are/were MSc students and researchers in Portuguese higher education institutions such as Universities or Polytechnic Institutes, developing their research activity ideally within the Scientific Areas.
Note: Individual applicants with past or present collaboration with Fraunhofer Portugal or with its founding associates, research centres or project partners, are not eligible for participation in the Challenge. This includes past or present employees, thesis students, scholarship students, members of the Jury and their respective direct family.
Master Thesis Award
The submitted ideas must be based on a MSc thesis developed by the Participant resulting in an academic degree from a Portuguese higher education institution.
The ideas must be based on a thesis concluded and graded in the academic year of 2024/2025, that was not submitted in previous editions of the Challenge, or that has been concluded, defended and graded or will be defended and graded in the academic year of 2025/2026, and provided that it has not been submitted in previous editions of the Challenge, nor any other competition sponsored by FhP-AICOS.
In case the submitted idea has not yet been defended and graded, the Participant must submit a statement in support from the thesis supervisor upon submission of the idea, in the 1st Round.
Student Award – Special Rules
The submitted ideas must be aligned with the Scientific Areas and must be developed having “Research of Practical Utility” in mind. The submitted ideas do not need to be associated with any scientific work (e.g. master thesis).
The Master Thesis Award will follow the chronogram below, divided into three rounds:
1st Round:
01 Jun 2026: beginning of the idea submission period;
23 Jul 2026: end of the idea submission period;
05 Aug 2026: end of 1st round assessment;
06 Aug 2026: announcement of the 1st round results.
2nd Round:
06 Aug 2026: beginning of the additional documentation submission period;
28 Aug 2026: end of the additional documentation submission period;
10 Sep 2026: end of 2nd round assessment;
11 Sep 2026: announcement of the 2nd round results.
3rd Round:
18 Oct 2026: Submission of Final Presentations
28 Oct 2026: Fraunhofer Portugal Challenge Closing Event
– 3rd Round: public presentation of the best 2nd round results
– 3rd Round: announcement of the 3rd round results – The Winners
The Student Award will follow the chronogram:
01 Jun 2026: beginning of the idea submission period;
23 Jul 2026: end of the idea submission period;
Until 05 Aug 2026: announcement of the results and winning idea;
Until 15 Sep 2026: beginning of the mentoring work;
28 Oct 2026: public presentation of the winning idea and work developed within the mentorship (Fraunhofer Portugal Challenge Closing Event).
Meet the people who are part of this year's jury panel:
Liliana Ferreira
Liliana Ferreira is the director of Fraunhofer Portugal and Professor at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto. Liliana Ferreira holds a PhD in Informatics Engineering from the University of Aveiro, and has worked as a researcher and guest researcher in several research groups as Philips Research Eindhoven,the Institute of Electronics and Telematics Engineering of Aveiro, IBM Research and Development, Ubiquitous Knowledge Lab of the Technical University of Darmstadt and in the Linguistic Department of the University of Tübingen. Her main research activities are in the area of Human Language Technologies, Information Extraction, Medical Knowledge Representation, and Health Informatics.
Ana Correia de Barros
With a background in industrial design and a PhD in industrial engineering and management (UBI), Ana Correia de Barros has professional experience as designer, lecturer, and design researcher. Ana is currently Head of Human-Centred Design at Fraunhofer AICOS, a research centre on digital technology, having before held research positions at UNIDCOM-IADE, and at the vocational rehabilitation centre CRPG. Ana has led several National and European research projects and her research revolves around assistive products and inclusive design in healthcare, both at home (e.g., coping with chronic disease) and at work (e.g., coping with mental health vis-à-vis working conditions). In these contexts, Ana is particularly interested in spontaneous design, product appropriation and affective human-object relationships.
For the category Master Thesis Award, the Fraunhofer Portugal Challenge will award a total of €6.000 (six thousand Euros) in scientific prizes, divided into three placements (1st, 2nd and 3rd Prize).
For the category Student Award, the Jury will consider awarding one scientific prize to the best idea. The prize consists of mentoring - provided by specialists from FhP-AICOS - and a prize in the total amount of €3,000.00 (three thousand Euros). The mentoring period, up to a maximum of 6 months, will be determined according to the student's availability and the work plan defined with the FhP-AICOS experts.
For more specific informations, please consult the Fraunhofer Portugal Challenge 2026 - Terms & Conditions and the Fraunhofer Portugal Challenge 2026 - Contest Presentation. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us.
Fraunhofer Portugal Challenge