INESC Porto strengthens presence in the Balkans

The kick-off meetings for two new projects of the TEMPUS programme took place in January and INESC Porto is currently participating in this programme through the Power Systems Unit (USE).

The first project is called JADES – Joint Advanced Doctoral Degree in Energy Systems. This project is a development of the former TEMPUS project, CEFES - Cost Effective and Environmentally Friendly Energy Systems. CEFES organised an MSc programme for the Universities of Tuzla (Bosnia), Novi Sad (Serbia) and St. Kiril i Methodius (Macedonia).

The CEFES project was quite successful and you can learn more about it on www.cefes.untz.ba. On the other hand, the TEMPUS JADES is organising a new and modern PhD programme for the same universities, following the Bologna process. The official website is www.jades.fe.untz.ba.

The cooperation within the European Union joins INESC Porto to a team of “old acquaintances” from the Universities of Manchester and Athens. In fact, they have already been partners in several European projects. The Faculty of Engineering from the University of Porto (FEUP) has also been participating in these projects and it is expected that foreign PhD students may carry out many activities in the city of Porto in the near future.

The second project is called TEMPUS SEECEN - South East Europe Continuing Education Network and its main goal is to promote advanced training in power systems oriented for the technical professionals within the sector’s companies and also for governmental and regulatory organisations.

This project includes, not only the participation of the abovementioned countries in the Balkans (Serbia, Bosnia and Macedonia), but also Albany and Greece. In fact, the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece is the European Union’s prime contractor and the University of Darmstadt (Germany) is its privileged partner.

The visibility that this project entails naturally follows the activities that USE has been carrying out for the Bulgarian and Hungarian regulatory organisations.