On the 19th November, at the University of Minho, a meeting was held with businessmen from the textile industry, at the initiative of the Mayor of Guimarães. Domingos Bragança aims at strengthening multidisciplinarity and increase knowledge transfer to industry.
It is urgent to combine the University of Minho’s scientific knowledge with the working experience of textile industry. This was one of the main conclusions resulting from the Advisory Council promoted by Guimarães municipality, which gathered more than fifty participants at the EEUM.
“Cooperation is necessary, as it brings industry into a new dimension. We will have to enable companies and offer conditions for industrial units to be competitive in Europe, if this can’t be done through reindustrialization.”, the President of the municipality stated. The region where Guimarães is located was described as the “heart of textile industry in Portugal”, as it concentrates around “80% of the companies” working in the sector.
Riopele, Somelos and Petratex, industry representatives present in the meeting, have noted a common fact: there is a lack of textile engineers. It is therefore very important for these companies to keep benefiting from the laboratories of the Department of Textile Engineering and of the Centre for Science and Textile Technology, aiming at training new generations of professionals in this area. “This is an opportunity to take the leap and invest in this sector, making it more attractive to young students and professionals. It is vital to understand and study work processes and show them to companies. Human capital is extremely important, our Research Centre is a renowned research facility and has received very good classification in different parameters”, the Rector of the University of Minho, António M. Cunha, inferred. João Monteiro, Dean of the EEUM, agrees with this statement, reinforcing the institution’s availability to “cooperate with industry not only in incorporating innovation, but also as far as lifelong learning opportunities are concerned.”
It is urgent to combine the University of Minho’s scientific knowledge with the working experience of textile industry. This was one of the main conclusions resulting from the Advisory Council promoted by Guimarães municipality, which gathered more than fifty participants at the EEUM.
“Cooperation is necessary, as it brings industry into a new dimension. We will have to enable companies and offer conditions for industrial units to be competitive in Europe, if this can’t be done through reindustrialization.”, the President of the municipality stated. The region where Guimarães is located was described as the “heart of textile industry in Portugal”, as it concentrates around “80% of the companies” working in the sector.
Riopele, Somelos and Petratex, industry representatives present in the meeting, have noted a common fact: there is a lack of textile engineers. It is therefore very important for these companies to keep benefiting from the laboratories of the Department of Textile Engineering and of the Centre for Science and Textile Technology, aiming at training new generations of professionals in this area. “This is an opportunity to take the leap and invest in this sector, making it more attractive to young students and professionals. It is vital to understand and study work processes and show them to companies. Human capital is extremely important, our Research Centre is a renowned research facility and has received very good classification in different parameters”, the Rector of the University of Minho, António M. Cunha, inferred. João Monteiro, Dean of the EEUM, agrees with this statement, reinforcing the institution’s availability to “cooperate with industry not only in incorporating innovation, but also as far as lifelong learning opportunities are concerned.”