INNOVATION-BASED ECONOMY
A leading business association that promotes technology, innovation, and collaborative networks, COTEC focuses on creating synergies to promote economic growth.
BIOGRAPHY
Jorge Portugal has been General Manager of COTEC Portugal since 2016. He served for 10 years as advisor on innovation, entrepreneurship, and competitiveness for the President of Portugal. Previously, he served as a consultant to the government on innovation in public services. He earned his bachelor’s, MSc, and PhD in mechanical engineering from Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon. He also holds an MBA from NOVA School of Business and Economics.What are COTEC's key objectives?
For us, one of the key aims is to generate open innovation and collaborative networks. COTEC is a network that brings companies together. We are not focused on any one sector or specific level of company development. From the outset, we looked to create synergies between SMEs and large companies as a key mechanism to promote economic growth. We now see a growing interest from larger companies to address the innovation problems they need to solve, and they believe interaction with SMEs with specific skills from other sectors may bring in additional expertise that can help. Working with the government also plays a major role, and Industry 4.0 is a great example of identifying innovation barriers to be overcome.
To what extent can a culture of innovation act as a catalyst for job creation, and what impact can it have on supporting SME development?
Our growth potential is in moving SMEs to different stages of scale and impact in terms of turnover or employment. From that perspective, we demonstrated a strong correlation between innovation and the ability to manage these processes with a proprietary maturity framework called Innovation Scoring. We also demonstrated the growth potential of SME companies. This would have a growth impact on the national economy of 0.5% of GDP. Innovative SMEs create more and better-paying jobs and play an important social role since they distribute more profit across society. This growth model supported by innovative SMEs is a sustainable one, both in terms of business growth and achieving quality employment. SMEs in the COTEC network are on average smaller and stuck in that trap between size, scale, and level of innovation. They have many opportunities to grow but simply do not have the resources or financial capital to address those opportunities.
What initiatives have been the most effective in achieving COTEC's core objectives?
For example, Portugal's aerospace cluster has been evolving for 100 years. During this time, a number of companies active in maintenance, transport, injection-molding, and metals have entered the market, and it has grown a great deal over the past decade. For this cluster of activities, Portugal is in an extremely selective club of aeronautic manufacturers. There are almost 200 companies in Portugal working in some way; however, this is just one example, and there are many more. We need to stimulate a cluster of activities in order to extract the growth potential because most are highly capital- and knowledge-intensive and able to provide quality employment. We can identify several clusters, including food, the agro and pulp and paper industry, tourism, and health as having excellent prospects for new growth and investment.
What image you would like the international investment community to have about Portuguese innovation?
In the last 25 years, we have been building an international case to have the appropriate talents and capabilities in different areas. We have well-positioned universities that are training researchers and professionals in management and engineering with one of the best engineering faculties in Europe, and the best proof of the way we train engineers and managers is the success of the Portuguese abroad. A number of sectors have been transformed into innovative businesses, and we are now able to use not only the supply capabilities, but also have markets and business that can use those innovative capabilities. What we need is external investment to boost and consolidate these areas of high-value activities. More investment will have not only a direct effect but a multiplying one, because the country is ready to grow on the next-generation demand. We already have the connections between the companies and universities that supply the source of knowledge; however, we also need a great and international partner network. COTEC may help bring together and activate those cross-country networks of innovation with what we call entrepreneurial discovery, which is not only about the business people and entrepreneurs but the scientists, technicians, and companies that supply technologies.
INNOVATION-BASED ECONOMY
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Focus: Community of Portuguese Language Speaking Countries
Making an Impact
Established in 1996, the Community of Portuguese Language Speaking Countries (CPLP) is a mechanism geared at linking and sharing the experience of Lusophone countries. Besides Portugal, this includes Brazil, Portugal, Cape Verde, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, and São Tomé and Príncipe.
read articleFocus
Don’t Mind the Disruption
Having won the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest, Lisbon hosted the 2018 event. The relevance? Well, the contest began back in 1956 as a showcase not only of song, but of then-nascent live television broadcast technology. Today, Portugal is on the cutting edge of new technological developments.
read articleInterview
João Pedro Soeiro de Matos Fernandes , Minister , Environment and Energy Transition
The Ministry for the Environment and Energy Transition is focusing on decarbonizing the economy, valuing the territory and its habitats, and striving for a more circular use of the country's resources.
read articleInterview
António Braz Costa , General Manager, Portuguese Technological Centre for the Textile & Clothing Industries (CITEVE)
CITEVE has transformed the industry by promoting value addition, adopting the latest technologies, and ensuring the highest standards of environmental sustainability.
read articleFocus: New airport
Right Time to Seize Missed Opportunities
Portugal has seen its air traffic figures increase by as much as 80% in the last five years. As a result, its transportation infrastructure, and Lisbon's airport in particular, cannot cope with the rising numbers. A new airport project that will turn a military base into a commercial airport is now under discussion to bring much-needed relief to air traffic.
read articleInterview
Germano de Sousa , President, Grupo Germano de Sousa
Grupo Germano de Sousa's success can best be summed up by its understanding that science and medicine only really progress when technological development is combined with a deeper respect for human values and professional ethics.
read articleInterview
Isabel Capeloa Gil , Rector, Universidade Católica
Having pioneered the introduction of multiple subject areas to Portugal's tertiary education scene, Universidade Católica is aspiring to establish the country's first private medical school and introduce cutting-edge digital transformation.
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Carlos Guillén Gestoso , President, Escola Universitária de Ciências Empresariais, Saúde, Tecnologias e Engenharia & President, Atlantica University
Atlantica University differentiates through its company-university model and an MBA program in partnership with the University of California, Berkley, among other initiatives, to produce practical theoreticians.
read articleFocus: Public teaching staff
An Age-old Problem
Over a decade of austerity measures combined with an ageing population have seen the average age of the Portuguese public teaching staff progressively climb to one of the highest in the OECD. With frozen salaries, an extended retirement age, and precarious working conditions, today the sector faces one of its biggest challenge yet.
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Pedro Queiroz , General Manager, Federation of the Portuguese Agri-Food Industry (FIPA)
Portugal's economic recovery has seen its F&B sector emerge with annual turnovers of EUR16 billion, thanks to FIPA's undeterred focus on stable policies, excellent nutrition standards, and sustainability.
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