For António Brandão de Vasconcelos, chairman of everis Portugal, it is a necessity for large companies to “give back to society” a part of what is given to them.

Everis was founded in Portugal in 1999. Was the corporate social responsibility policy already being applied at that time?
Yes, we have had something from the very beginning. But in the initial stage we did what was being done at the time: painting walls, taking care of gardens…

Why did you have this concern from the very beginning?
I think it is the responsibility of large companies to give back to society a part of what society has given us. Society does not accept that a large company does not have a social role. Companies have to be seen by the market as serious entities and, in addition, it is important that our employees see everis as a company that they can be proud of.

Are you still painting walls?
Painting walls was a lot of fun, but made everything dirty. Today we have several things, such as a foundation that has been active in the areas of talent, entrepreneurship and innovation. Then we have an area of social responsibility where we help the third sector, the social economy, to find ways of management that permit greater efficiency. We are very interested in this area. Additionally, we do consulting projects: we stopped painting walls, but we do what we know.

And the collaborations with Técnico?
They are within the scope of the everis foundation.

In 2012 everis and Técnico signed a collaboration agreement. Did the collaboration already start before that?
We have had a relationship with Técnico from the outset because 40 percent of our collaborators come from Técnico. I think that’s one of the reasons for our success: people with very good training. We already collaborated with Técnico before the agreement, and this agreement has to do with talent; we collaborated with Técnico to try and transform some patents and areas of research into businesses with consulting services. It was a very interesting work.

The agreement ended, meanwhile…
That one is over, but the collaboration has been extended to other areas. At the time, we looked at four patents and analysed their value and how we could help them to have a market. In this work we determined that some things could have been better if there had been more dialogue with the stakeholders or the market at an earlier stage.

Hence the participation in the iLLP @ Technical initiative (Innovation Lean LaunchPad), an acceleration program?
Yes. The goal is to create contacts with the market earlier on. This is done through i-deals, a company of the group whose objective is exactly this: to foster the exchange between those who research and the market.

Is this presently the principal collaboration with Técnico?
The Lean LaunchPad will be kept next year. We had an edition in 2014-15 and we will have another edition in 2015-16. We count on keeping these collaborations with Técnico.

And the results of this partnership?
The fact that our collaborators know that we have a relationship with the institution where they studied is important. And it is important that Técnico students see everis as a company that cares and tries to help.

Do you have other ways to promote innovation and entrepreneurship?
We have an international award for entrepreneurship… We are already in the 14th edition. Curiously, the last two winning Portuguese companies were spin-offs from Técnico: Cell2B and the HeartGenetics. They are life sciences companies, they’re not pure engineering companies. I think this is a very interesting indicator of what is happening at Técnico.