SusTEC - Associate Laboratory for Sustainability and Technology in Mountains Regions results from the association of two research units hosted at the Polytechnic Institute of Bragança (IPB), the Mountain Research Centre (CIMO, https://cimo.ipb.pt/), and the Research Centre in Digitalization and Intelligent Robotics (CeDRI, https://cedri.ipb.pt).
Both units have been awarded with “Excellent” in the past FCT Research Units evaluation (2017/2018), being nowadays fundamental driving forces of the Trás-os-Montes mountains development, thanks to the accumulated knowledge and past successful experience, both at national and international level. The focus of the SusTEC is not centred in a vertical thematic field but instead in transversal and transdisciplinary societal challenges aligned with the national and European agendas for research and innovation.
CIMO acts in Mediterranean mountain areas following an interdisciplinary approach based on an applied research strategy that covers topics and expertise that goes from Nature (raw materials, natural resources, biodiversity, agriculture and forest management) to Products (Food, Bio-based materials, and other bioproducts).
CeDRI is an inter-disciplinary research unit that applies scientific knowledge related to robotics, intelligent systems, and information and communication technologies in the scope of the digitalization and automation of industrial systems, covering the topics of industrial embedded and cyber‐physical systems, intelligent systems and data analytics, intelligent and collaborative robotic systems, and modelling, simulation and optimization for decision support.
This association will ensure the two main pillars proposed for the Associate Laboratory: Sustainability and Technology, which are vital elements for the social and economic development, with unavoidable relevance for mountains regions.
CIMO and CeDRI will promote complementarity and synergies among researchers in such transdisciplinary areas, sustained by the past historical record of successful cooperation in several national and international projects.