The BIG ERA Chair Board saw the addition of two new members, and met on July 15th 2024, at INESC-ID, with the project coordination, ERA Chair and research team.
In what regards the project human resources a new ERAChair holder was successful and two new faculty members were hired. Regarding the support team, at INESC-ID, a senior Project Manager and a Laboratory Technician were recruited. At ITI-LARSyS, a junior project manager was recruited together with a research engineer.
Training for Horizon Europe and a Portuguese Language course were provided to the previous ERA Chair. The project also supported training of six ITI/LARSyS and INESC-ID staff members in financial management and audit of Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe projects. The project also organized several exchanges events: two talks in collaboration with ITI/LARSyS and the Ph.D. in Digital Media; a workshop between members of the BIG team with researchers at the Politecnico di Milano-Blockchain & Web3 Observatory; research visit of Jorge Perez (University of Groningen); and the INESC-ID Distinguished Talk with Philip Wadler (Univ. Edinburgh).
The ERA Chair research team worked together to submit funding applications to European and non-European Funding sources (€13,15 M). The project registered 6 secondments of Master/Ph.D. students and junior researchers.
20 undergraduate, master and Ph.D. courses were lectured by the project team members. 77 Master and Ph.D. students have developed their thesis in the context of the BIG project. During RP2, 38 students have graduated and 30 are still pursuing their master or Ph.D. programs.
Regarding the BIG Lab, human resources were hired, main research themes are identified, and now the objective is to make the BIG Lab available to Master and Ph.D. students associated with the project or companies affiliated with the project.
The project committed to disseminate its results to broader audiences, with a renewed presence in the social media, but also through op-ed articles, YouTube videos, a podcast participation, and the thorough update of the BIG website. The project team reinforced its presence in international and national events which saw an increase in the scientific outputs of the project, namely scientific publications (47 in total, 19 in Q1, A, A*); but also at the level of the collaboration with industry, with a renewed strategy of collaboration through the establishment of MoU agreements with key companies. The project team members have organized or co-organized advanced training programs and also various scientific events.
