Faculdade

Research

Ongoing Research Projects

The Portuguese Geological Survey (1848-1970): History and Scientific Heritage PTDC/HCT/65345/2006, 2007-2011

Principal Investigator: Ana Carneiro

This project is a continuation of a former project funded by FCT , whose aims are towfold: linking historical research on the acitivies and actors of the geological surveying of Portugal and the cataloguing and preservation of archival material.

The Sites of Chemistry/Chantiers de la Chimie, financiado por Maison Française/Oxford University, Wellcome Trust, Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry, 2010/14

http://www.sitesofchemistry.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2&Itemid=2

Member of Advisory Committee: Ana Carneiro

From its immediate origins in the 17th century chemistry has been practiced in a wide range of physical spaces and places, from the princely court to the apothecaries shop, from the learned society and the lecture theatre to the university research laboratory, from the craftsman’s workshop to the industrial R and D laboratory. This project aims at analyzing these different spaces, from the 18th to the 20th century.

Regulation in Telecommunications Industries, PTDC/EGE-ECO/115451/2009 

Principal Investigator: Duarte Brito

The Welfare Effects of Bundled Discounts in Oligopoly, PTDC/EGE-ECO/111558/2009

Principal Investigator: Duarte Brito

Economics and Institutions,  PTDC/ECO/65317/2006, 2008-2011

Fernanda Llussá, with Francisca Oliveira, Nuno Garoupa, and José Tavares

The Popularization of Science and Technology (19th-20th centuries), Compromisso com a Ciência, FCT/MCTES, 2007-2012

http://www.ciuhct.com/index.php/en/research/209-a-popularizacao-da-ciencia-e-da-tecnica-em-portugal-secs-xix-xx.html

Principal Investigator: Maria Paula Diogo

This project aims at launching the bases of a survey and systematic analysis of sources devoted to the popularization of science and technology in Portugal, between the 18th and the 19th century. A primary goal is the understanding of the ways in which science and technology were disseminated among non-specialised audiences and the perceptions of these audiences about the role and importance of science and technology in Portuguese society.

Reshaping Africa: Portuguese engineering and territory management in the colonies of Angola and Mozambique (1870-1974), PTDC/HIS-HCT/118359/2010 (2011-2014)

Principal Investigator: Maria Paula Diogo

This project aims at understanding how technical/engineering expertise was crucial to the Portuguese agenda concerning management and exploitation of the overseas territories in Angola and Mozambique, from about the mid 19th century to the 1970s.  One of the main pillars of this process is the building of infrastructures in colonial territories, particularly since the era of the New Imperialism. Our basic assumption is that technology is at the very core of European influence worldwide, making Europe an "irresistible empire”. (Headrick, 1981).; to conduct our analysis we use LTS (Large Technological Systems) theoretical framework, and the concepts of “technopolitics” and "portals of globalization."

Making Europe: Technologies and Transformations, 1850-2000 (book series editor: Johan Schot), Palgrave/Foundation for the History of Technology, 2009-2012 

http://www.makingeurope.eu/www/en/bookseries

Co-author of volume 6, Europe in the Global World: Maria Paula Diogo

A six-volume series on key historical and transnational dynamics which have constituted contemporary Europe. The authors’ collective, developed over the last ten years through ESF-funded research initiatives, uses a much-neglected, but highly-appropriate lens to research these dynamics. Each volume will examine how Technology (here defined not only as machines, products, systems, and infrastructures but also as the skills and knowledge that make them work) operated as an agent of change in the contested processes of making European spaces.

Engineering and Scientific Culture in Catalunya and Spain, (HUM2007-62222/HIST, Ministerio da Educácion y Ciencia, Espanha), 2009-2012 

http://www.ciuhct.com/index.php/en/research/210-ingenieria-e-cultura-cientifica-en-catalunya-y-espana.html

Coordinator of the Portuguese Group: Maria Paula Diogo (General Coordinator: Antoni Roca-Rosell, ETSEIB/UPC).

This project includes two different, yet complementary, lines of research: heritage and history of science and technology. The Portuguese team participation is focused on a comparative study (Portugal, Russia, Italy and the rest of Spain), which will privilege the following topics: 1) the study of the textbooks; 2) the promotion of local scientific and technical culture, as well as on the professionalization of engineers.