Science and Technology

Two Técnico projects selected by FCT reinforce the fight against the pandemic

The projects 'SCOPE- Spatial Data Sciences for COVID-19 Pandemic' and 'DETECT - Data sciEnce Tools for Epidemiologic surveillance using multiple sourCes of data' were approved by FCT, under the 'AI 4 COVID-19' competition.

FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia approved 12 research projects under the “AI 4 COVID-19” competition.  Two Técnico projects were approved: “SCOPE- Spatial Data Sciences for COVID-19 Pandemic”, led by CERENA, and “DETECT – Data sciEnce Tools for Epidemiologic surveillance using multiple sourCes of data”, coordinated by INESC-ID.

The  12 projects represent a total investment of €3 million, of which about €465,000 were allocated to Técnico research centres.

The “AI 4 COVID-19” competition is part of the National Digital Competences Initiative e.2030, also known as Portugal INCoDe.2030, in the research strategic pillar. As in previous years, the selected projects aim to promote information extraction from large data repositories (big data) and the use of artificial intelligence and programming languages. In this edition, particular emphasis was given to COVID-19, as well as to other potential future pandemics.