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
29 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;
29 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.
Filipe Sousa
Filipe Sousa is the research coordinator for the Connected Things group at Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS. He oversees the team’s activities, shapes the research agenda, and drives innovation in cyber-physical systems through securing competitive funding and industry partnerships. He has led several high-impact projects, including AAL4ALL, SmartBEAT, and the technical coordination of the Deus Ex Machina (DeM) project. Filipe Sousa is an invited professor at the University of Aveiro, the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Porto, and Porto Business School (PBS).
Filipe Sousa holds a Ph.D. in Telecommunications from the University of Porto and a Master’s degree in Business Information from the Catholic University of Porto.
Francisco Nunes
Francisco Nunes is a Senior Researcher at Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS, working on the Human-Centred Design team. He holds a Master in Informatics and Computer Engineering from the University of Porto (2010), and PhD in Human-Computer Interaction from TU Wien (2017). Francisco is an expert in ethnographically informed design, user-centered design, and participatory design approaches. His research is concerned with the user research, design, and evaluation of technologies for older people, especially in the healthcare domain. Francisco started doing research at Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS (2008-2012), and has held research positions at TU Wien (2012-2017), and the Universidade NOVA de Lisboa (2016-2017).
Meet the people who are part of this year's panel of experts:
João José Pinto Ferreira
Carlos Soares
Carlos Soares joined Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS as Innovation Lead. He obtained an undergraduate degree (licenciatura) in Systems Engineering and Informatics from U. Minho, Portugal, an M.Sc. degree in Artificial Intelligence and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from U. Porto, Portugal. After 15 years at the Faculty of Economics, he is now an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Engineering of U. Porto, where he holds the positions of Subdirector of the Dep. of Informatics Engineering, Director of the Ph.D. programme on Informatics Engineering and Adjunct Director of the M.Sc. programme on Data Science and Engineering. Carlos also teaches at the Porto Business School, where he is the co-Director of the executive programme on Business Intelligence & Analytics.
Clara Gonçalves
Deep-tech entrepreneur with over two decades of experience at the intersection of R&D, innovation, and leadership. Currently Director of R&D Partnerships at Tekever, she co-founded Inductiva.AI, expanding access to high-performance computing for scientific simulation. As Executive Director of UPTEC (University of Porto), she supported more than 500 technology startups and attracted international innovation centres to Portugal. She holds an Executive MBA from Católica Porto Business School and serves on advisory boards that bridge science, industry, and policy in Europe and the United States.
Liliana Antão
Liliana Antão is an AI researcher at FEUP and Co-Founder of Medtiles. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Informatics Engineering, with research focused on applying Artificial Intelligence and Robotics to improve collaboration between humans and machines. Liliana has over 10 years of experience working at the intersection of AI, data science, and innovation, from research at the Digital and Intelligent Industry Lab (SYSTEC, FEUP), to consulting on AI strategy and R&D innovation at Deloitte, and developing AI products across industries at DEUS.ai. Driven by the belief that AI literacy should be accessible to everyone, she is passionate about bridging the gap between AI research and real-world applications. As part of this commitment, she has delivered more than 30 talks, workshops, and training sessions, helping companies, institutions, and professionals better understand and harness the potential of AI.
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