UTAD has mission of teaching (8300 students), research and extension. Research activities at UTAD are concentrated in 8 Research Centres with 300 researchers. Overall, these Research Units have duplicated the scientific Production of “refereed” papers of the SCI during the last 3 years (reached 300 in 2008). It must be emphasized that the Research Units accommodate researchers from other institutions in Portugal and abroad and the policy is to continue to do so. A graduate increase link to stakeholders and SME’s has been achieved and we will pursue in the future. Another feature in research which has been growing in the last couple of years is the number of scholarships which now is around one hundred but we expect to reach 150 by 2010. After the recent launched Programme by FCT for the integration of young students in research UTAD expect to grant 74 students. Also with the support of FCT a total of 22 new contracts with high quality and experienced PhD’s will be effective during 2009.
The UTAD has a wide portfolio of projects financed by various programs (AGRO, FCT-POCTI, INTERREG, etc). Within the framework of INTERREG, UTAD has been a national leader (within the higher education institutions) and regarding the projects related to agriculture ranks third at national funding. Within the European Framework Programmes UTAD has a small share of projects but has been participating in every of this programmes except the FP7, although several proposals have been submitted.

CETRAD is part of the University of Trás-os-Montes & Alto Douro (UTAD) and was created in 2002 by researchers in the Department of Economics, Sociology & Management (DESG). It is a designated “centre for research and development” in the social sciences. Currently there are 42 Principal Researchers (mainly from UTAD), 17 associate researchers (from other universities) and 30 assistent researchers (completing their PhDs). Most of the 42 Principal Researchers are members of DESG, and have a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds (anthropology, agrarian sciences, economics, management and sociology, among others) and while the areas in which they completed their PhDs in part reflect the main teaching interests of the Department, they neverethless cover a considerable diversity of research interests that feed into the Centre’s disciplinary, multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary work. CETAD’s main rsearch focus is on questions relating to social, economic and business development in a territorial (i.e regional and local) context – in particular those problems faced by peripheral territories. It is this research focus that makes CETRAD unique at national level.

CETRAD’s central aims are to (1) provide incentives for the transddisciplinary construction of coherent and innovative research methodologies, and their application to the problems of social, economic and business, development in a teritorial (i.e. regional and local) context; (2) promote advanced training in the disciplines that contribute to development studies; and (3) use its accumulated knowledge, creativity and skills in the service of the wider community.

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Address
Av. Almeida Lucena 1
5000-660 Vila Real, Portugal

Telephone
(+351) 259 302 200

Fax
(+351) 259 302 249

Website
www.cetrad.info