News and Events

Analogical reasoning is a remarkable human capability, allowing us to adapt to novel situations — an ability that current AI systems still lack.

Much research has suggested that analogies are key to non-brittle systems that can adapt to new domains. Attempts to attack this problem have been fragmented, with different groups focusing on narrow aspects of the problem, each group using their own separate evaluation metrics. We believe that the lack of unifying foundational mathematical frameworks and evaluation benchmarks has been limiting progress in analogy research.

With this conference we aim to bring together leading experts from various research and applied fields to join forces, share perspectives, and collectively define the research agenda for the immediate future. Recognizing the need for foundational work in this area, we seek unifying frameworks, methodologies, and basic principles that will serve as the cornerstone for future advancements.

Principia Analogiae 2025 will involve keynote presentations, followed by working groups to tackle several challenges related to analogy theory and applications. These will be soon announced.

The conference is free of charge but registration is mandatory and places are limited. See the conference site for instructions.

The inaugural workshop Positivity and Hyperbolicity in Lisbon will feature two mini-courses: one by Professor Thomas Peternell (Universität Bayreuth) on Positivity properties of the cotangent bundle of manifolds with non-negative Kodaira dimension and geometric applications, and another by Professor Frederic Campana (Université de Lorraine) on Birational classification according to the line bundles of maximal Kodaira dimension in exterior powers of the cotangent bundle. These courses are designed for young researchers and advanced graduate students. The workshop will also include seven research talks, with four focusing specifically on hyperbolicity aspects.

This meeting celebrates Rui Loja Fernandes’ 60th birthday and his important contributions to these areas. The conference will feature both distinguished speakers and promising young researchers.

This meeting will welcome more than 30 internationally renowned experts in Quality Control. It will be supported by IST, CEMAT and DM.

Over 40 years and 14 workshops, the series has established its scope and setting, while exploring such topics as:

• Statistical Process Control and Monitoring
• Sampling Inspection / Plans
• Measurement Uncertainty
• Design of Experiments in Quality Assurance
• Data Warehousing, Explorative Data Analysis, Data Quality
• Machine Learning in Quality Control.

The four previous editions were held in Washington DC, Hong Kong, Hamburg and Sydney.
 

The 2025 edition of the conference Global Portuguese Mathematicians aims to bring together Mathematicians from around the world who have a strong connection with Portugal.

This workshop explores analogical reasoning — a core cognitive skill involving knowledge transfer across domains — and its applications in AI, from traditional symbolic methods to modern neural techniques like LLMs. It aims to unite researchers from machine learning, NLP, and knowledge representation to advance analogical reasoning in AI and vice versa. The goal is to foster interdisciplinary collaboration to deepen understanding and innovation in this foundational aspect of cognition and machine intelligence.

This meeting will bring together the large community interested in nonlinear PDEs, including elliptic, parabolic, dispersive and coagulation-fragmentation equations. Participation is free, but registration via the website is required. More information is available there. Limited funding may be available for young researchers.

There was an opportunity for contributed talks. The deadline to submit an abstract was May 5, 2025. Please check the details.

Organizers

• Jean-Baptiste Casteras (CEMS.UL, Universidade de Lisboa),
• Marina Ferreira (CNRS, Université Toulouse),
• Fernando Miranda (CMAT, Universidade do Minho),
• Lisa Santos (CMAT, Universidade do Minho),
• Hugo Tavares (CAMGSD, IST),
• Dmitry Vorotnikov (CMUC, Unversidade do Minho).

The ninth edition of the biennial IST-IME conference, a collaborative effort between Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) in Lisbon, the Institute of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of São Paulo (IME-USP), and the Brazilian and Portuguese Mathematical Societies (SBM and SPM), will be held at IME-USP from August 4 to 8, 2025.

The 2025 edition will focus on Harmonic Analysis, Dispersive and Elliptic Equations.

Check the conference website for details including registration, poster and contacts.

The call for contributed talks is open until June 15th.

Organized by Simão Correia, João Pedro Ramos, Diogo Oliveira e Silva and Hugo Tavares.

As part of the IST Day celebrations, Técnico’s Excellent Faculty were recognized for their dedication and impact on teaching. Among the honorees was the Técnico Excellence in Teaching Award (1st cycle), awarded to Professor Hugo Tavares for his outstanding work in Calculus II. This award highlights the Department of Mathematics’ tradition of excellence, following last year’s distinction awarded to Professor Nuno Martins for his teaching in Linear Algebra. Check all the awarded faculty.

The Técnico Excellence in Teaching Award celebrates pedagogical quality and the commitment of professors to student success. This recognition reflects Técnico’s ongoing investment in outstanding education. Learn more about the award.

The Department of Mathematics was featured on CNN Innovation, a television program dedicated to technology and scientific innovation.

After a two-year break, Ponto Fixo, the beloved mathematics journal, is back with its fifth edition. Editor Diana Gaspar highlights that while most news would lose relevance over such a gap, mathematics remains timeless, making this edition as valuable today as it would have been in 2023. The latest issue features articles on three of the four 2022 Fields Medal winners, student contributions, and a film review. It also includes interviews with former students discussing whether to pursue a doctorate, reflecting on how advanced degrees are becoming increasingly essential beyond academia.

The journal celebrates tradition and innovation, aligning with NMATH’s newer initiatives like Time2Talk and Integration Bee. Gaspar emphasizes Ponto Fixo’s role in fostering mathematical dialogue, giving students and professors a voice, and rekindling the passion that draws people to mathematics. While aimed at math enthusiasts, the journal welcomes all curious minds, whether they’re solving puzzles, skimming, or reading cover to cover. The editor concludes by thanking contributors and reaffirming the enduring spirit of knowledge-sharing that keeps the journal alive.

Hugo Tavares, vice-president of the Mathematics Department, tells us about Math@Técnico.

The Department of Mathematics continues its collaboration with TreeTree2, supporting the realization of Náboj at the Técnico Innovation Center (TIC). Náboj is an international mathematics competition for teams of five high school students representing their schools. Around 160 students are expected!

Complex Analysis and Dynamics in One Variable with Applications by Professor Luis T. Magalhães from the Mathematics Department, was published by Springer Nature. The book offers a smooth start to Complex Analysis, unifying ideas and concepts in a unique way, and includes all the standard material required in a one-year course at the graduate level. In addition, the book is enriched by historical notes that help to contextualize the theory.

The MATHS-DISC consortium, consisting of Università di Verona, Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Igor Sikorsky Polytechnic Institute Kiev, Universidade de Lisboa and Université Grenoble Alpes, and the partner university NTNU Trondheim, was successful with its proposal for an Erasmus Mundus Joint Master (EMJM) in Mathematical Modelling, Simulation and Data Science together with more than 20 partners from leading industry and research centers (e. g. Siemens, Intel, Bosch, Bayer, d-fine, uRoboptics, Vodafone Ukraine, IDOM, ENGYS, Otto Bock, DLR, Terranova, NeuronsLab, Computer Solutions SA, Royal IHC, …) from different sectors and from all over Europe.

This novel EMJM will have a total budget of about 5 million Euros in funding from the European Union over six years. The program is also supported by the European Consortium for Mathematics in Industry (ECMI) and the European Network of Mathematics for Industry and Innovation (EU-MATHS-IN) to train the PhD students of tomorrow and to establish interdisciplinary networks to share best practices at European level to overcome geographical and scientific fragmentation. 

The program is scheduled to start in the winter semester 2025/26 and applications should be possible from February 2025. For more general information about this EMJM, please contact Prof. Cláudia Nunes.