Author: ITI Webmaster

From 13 to 16 July, ITI researchers participated in the 2026 ACM Conference on Creativity and Cognition, held at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, in London. Under the theme “Creativity for Change,” the conference explored how creativity can enable societal transformation, address decolonisation and climate action, and support place-making in urban and cultural contexts. ITI participated with eight contributions, comprising papers and pictorials, a demonstration, and a poster.

Accessing Posthuman Concepts: Epistemic Technologies for Public Engagement Beyond the Human

Authors: Pedro Galvão-Ferreira (Interactive Technologies Institute), Marta Ferreira (Interactive Technologies Institute), Nuno Jardim Nunes (Interactive Technologies Institute), and Valentina Nisi (Interactive Technologies Institute)

The paper explores how three interactive artefacts can support perspective-shifting, empathy, and experiential learning in public engagement beyond the human.

Link: DOI: 10.1145/3803784.3807552

Between Streets and Screens: An Autoethnographic Narrative of Political Participation from Abroad

Authors: Beste Soybilge (Interactive Technologies Institute), Sarah Fox (Human-Computer Interaction Institute, Carnegie Mellon University), Nuno Jardim Nunes (Interactive Technologies Institute), and Valentina Nisi (Interactive Technologies Institute)

This pictorial examines how distance, digital mediation, and everyday life shape diaspora political participation and engagement with homeland politics.

Link: DOI: 10.1145/3803784.3809290

BioFabulations: Embodied Sensemaking for Planetary Care

Authors: Fernanda Soares da Costa (Interactive Technologies Institute), Frederico Duarte (Interactive Technologies Institute), and Valentina Nisi (Interactive Technologies Institute)

BioFabulations explores how storytelling, tangible making, and stop-motion animation can support children’s creative learning and engagement with local ecologies.

Link: DOI: 10.1145/3803784.3809288

Exploring Sense of Community in Spatial Computing: A Pokémon Go Case Study

Authors: Beste Soybilge (Interactive Technologies Institute), Sema Alaçam (Faculty of Architecture, Istanbul Technical University), Nuno Jardim Nunes (Interactive Technologies Institute), and Valentina Nisi (Interactive Technologies Institute)

The paper examines how a sense of community emerges through intertwined digital and physical practices among Pokémon Go players.

Link: DOI: 10.1145/3803784.3807537

Tagus Multispecies Atlas: Fostering Affective Multispecies Interactions Through Counter-Mapping

Authors: Katerina Inglezaki (Interactive Technologies Institute), Mariana Pestana (Interactive Technologies Institute), Yassir Yassin (Interactive Technologies Institute), Marco Quaggiotto (Department of Design, Politecnico di Milano), and Nuno Jardim Nunes (Interactive Technologies Institute)

This pictorial presents an interactive platform that turns fieldwork in a Portuguese salt marsh into spatial stories that foster curiosity and care towards nonhuman species.

Link: DOI: 10.1145/3803784.3809274

The Relational Entanglement Diary: A Novel Method for Evaluating Entangled Transmedia Engagement

Authors: Marta Ferreira (Interactive Technologies Institute), Pedro Galvão-Ferreira (Interactive Technologies Institute), Teresa Paulino (Interactive Technologies Institute), David Millard (University of Southampton), and Valentina Nisi (Interactive Technologies Institute)

The pictorial introduces a situated mixed-method tool for evaluating transmedia journeys as interconnected trajectories.

Link: DOI: 10.1145/3803784.3809275

Demonstration: Locative Game Creation Made Easy: A Participatory Authoring Platform for Interactive Heritage Experiences

Authors: Vadym Volkovinskyy (Interactive Technologies Institute), Teresa Paulino (Interactive Technologies Institute), Valentina Nisi (Interactive Technologies Institute), and Nuno Jardim Nunes (Interactive Technologies Institute)

The demonstration presents PathWriter, a no-code platform for creating and playing location-based heritage games that integrate more-than-human perspectives.

Link: DOI: 10.1145/3803784.3816879

Poster: Exploring Personal Narratives and Sociotechnical Change: Insights from Techno-Biographical Reflexive Ateliers

Authors: Luciana de Sousa Lima (Interactive Technologies Institute), Maria Júlia Vieira (University of Aveiro), Cláudia Silva (Interactive Technologies Institute), and Ana Cristina Pires (Interactive Technologies Institute and ISCTE)

The poster introduces a collaborative autoethnographic method for exploring how personal narratives intersect with sociotechnical systems over time.

Link: DOI: 10.1145/3803784.3816823

Researchers from the Interactive Technologies Institute (ITI/LARSyS) presented five contributions at DIS26, the ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference, with work addressing Sustainable HCI, ocean knowledge, ageing, brain health, culturally grounded design, and more-than-human design practice.

Valentina Demarchi, Valentina Nisi, and Nuno Jardim Nunes (all from ITI/LARSyS) presented the pictorial “Designing Boundary Objects to Surface Ocean Knowledge: The Case of the Coastal Community Thinking Toolkit”, which received an Honourable Mention. The work introduces a visual mapping device that supports collaborative sense-making around coastal communities and helps represent different forms of ocean knowledge across contexts.

The same ITI team also presented the paper “Infrastructuring Visual Systems to Foster Coastal Knowledge: Extending Points of Infrastructuring and Advancing an Analog-First Approach”. The paper develops the Coastal Community Thinking Toolkit as an analog visual mapping system for the co-production of situated coastal knowledge, contributing to ocean-focused Sustainable HCI and inclusive digital ocean ecosystem efforts.

Ana C. Veloso-Luis, Sónia Rafael, Mónica Mendes, all from ITI/LARSyS, and Joaquim Ferreira (LFCT, U.Lisboa) presented the pictorial “When a Puzzle Speaks: Collective Memory as a Brain-Health Practice”. The work explores an interactive cube puzzle that transforms community storytelling with older adults into visual compositions and audio retellings, supporting place attachment, collective memory, and cognitive stimulation.

Neeta M. Khanuja and Valentina Nisi, both from ITI/LARSyS, together with Yogesh Kumar Meena, from IIT Gandhinagar, and Jodi Forlizzi, from Carnegie Mellon University, presented the pictorial “Designing Culturally Grounded Reflection Cards That Explore Self-Perception of Aging and Automated Recommendations with Older Adults in India”. The work presents culturally grounded reflection cards and non-diagnostic reflective guidance designed to support emotional meaning-making and wellbeing among older adults in India.

Fernanda Soares da Costa (ITI/LARSyS) contributed to the workshop “Multispecies Response-ability in More-than-human Design Practice: Fabulation with Tides”. The workshop explored speculative fabulation with tides as a method for thinking about multispecies response-ability and more relational forms of design practice.

Together, these contributions show ITI’s engagement with participatory, situated, and interdisciplinary design research addressing social, ecological, cultural, and technological challenges.

Researchers from the Interactive Technologies Institute (ITI/LARSyS) presented six contributions at DRS 2026, the Design Research Society Conference in Edinburgh, with work addressing posthumanism, interspecies relations, intimate health, more-than-human temporalities, bioregional materials, and speculative approaches to AI.

Mariana Pestana, Katerina Inglezaki, Carlos Pastor, Mathilde Gouin, Bernardo Gaeiras, Fernanda Costa, and Mariana Simões, all from ITI/LARSyS, presented the paper “Interspecies: a collaborative curatorial inquiry into New Romanticism”. The paper reflects on the making of the Interspecies exhibition and presents a situated, plural, and horizontal curatorial methodology grounded in posthuman thought, interspecies relations, and critical engagement with the complexities of the climate crisis.

Renata Rocha, Ayşe Özge Ağça, and Teresa Almeida, all from ITI/LARSyS, presented the paper “Does taboo constrain self-knowledge?: A design-led inquiry into the intimate health of older women”. The paper explores how taboo and sociocultural constructs shape self-knowledge around intimate health in later life, drawing on a design workshop with women aged 65+ in Portugal and reflecting on design considerations for designing with taboo.

Mariana Simões, Mariana Pestana, Frederico Duarte, and Valentina Nisi, all from ITI/LARSyS, presented the paper “Tagus estuary color swatch: Materials as affective mediators in more-than-human temporalities”. The paper presents a Research-through-Design exploration of bio-pigments derived from local plant, mineral, algal, and waste streams, reframing material catalogues as tools for sensing and engaging with the ecological rhythms of the Tagus estuary.

Fábio de Almeida, Valentina Nisi, and Nuno Jardim Nunes, all from ITI/LARSyS, together with Pedro Sanches, from Umeå University, presented the paper “Designing Archipelagic AI: Challenging the coloniality of AI through speculative metaphors”. The paper introduces Archipelagic AI, a speculative framework that uses metaphor-making to challenge colonial epistemologies in AI and to propose situated and more-than-human approaches to AI design.

Marta Ferreira, Ana Henriques, and Valentina Nisi, all from ITI/LARSyS, together with Angelika Strohmayer, from Northumbria University, presented the paper “Practical ways of staying with the trouble: Enacting posthuman ethics through design practice”. The paper explores how posthuman design researchers operationalise values of care, messiness, and partiality in everyday research practice, drawing on interviews and diffractive analysis through posthuman and feminist care ethics perspectives.

Mathilde Gouin, Valentina Nisi, and Nuno Jardim Nunes, all from ITI/LARSyS, together with Daragh Byrne, from Carnegie Mellon University, and Larissa Pschetz and Keili Koppel, from the University of Edinburgh, presented “Kinship Time: Designing with More-Than-Human Temporalities”. The presentation explored more-than-human temporalities through kinship time, embodied reflection, and place-based approaches.

Together, these contributions show ITI’s engagement with posthuman, more-than-human, situated, and interdisciplinary approaches to design research.

Técnico co-organises the Sustainable Interaction Design Summer School at the Politecnico di Milano, in Italy

What does it take to imagine a world beyond plastic? This June, a team from Instituto Superior Técnico set out to answer exactly that — not from a lecture hall in Lisbon, but from the shores of Lake Como. As Part of the ITI-led Erasmus + project Sustainable Interaction Design, Prof. Valentina Nisi, Prof. Nuno Nunes, and Dr. Shuhao Ma from the Interactive Technologies Institute (ITI), co-organized the event, which took place at the Lecco POle of POLIMI, from June 8 to 12.

Técnico was represented by four students: Vadym Volkovinskyy, Margarida Silva, Henrique Nogueira, and Islomkhuja Murtazoev who joined four international teams, working with students from Aarhus University, the University of Lapland, Eindhoven University of Technology, and Politecnico di Milano. The teams brought together participants from different academic, cultural, and disciplinary backgrounds. Under the theme “Plastic Free,” the teams explored the environmental and social challenges of plastic consumption and waste. Through research, ideation, and prototyping, they developed sustainable, innovative design proposals from multiple perspectives.

As part of the program, Prof. Nuno Nunes, Prof. Valentina Nisi, and Dr. Shuhao Ma delivered a lecture on Social Justice and Ethics in Interaction Design. They invited students to consider how sustainable interaction design can address not only environmental impact but also justice, inclusion, responsibility, and power, reflecting ITI’s commitment to more sustainable and equitable futures.

For Técnico, the week was a chance to deepen ties with European partners and to put students face-to-face with a real-world challenge in a setting as international as it is interdisciplinary.

More information is available on the Sustainable Interaction Design website (https://www.sustainableixd.com/).

June 30, 18h00
Portugal Pavilion https://maps.app.goo.gl/KTsh95SoZ1yjPKBAA

As part of the scientific and pedagogical programme of Designing Sustainable Futures, ITI researchers will take part in a roundtable dedicated to the Interspecies Research Studio.

The Designing Sustainable Futures programme invites specialists and researchers from the University of Lisbon to explore the future of design and its intersections with art, architecture, engineering, biology, and urbanism, with a focus on the major environmental and social challenges of our time.

The Interspecies Research Studio is a collective of researchers from the Interactive Technologies Institute, Universidade de Lisboa, where art, science, technological experimentation, and critical inquiry come together. Its members work as interspecies designers, recognising the interdependencies between people, animals, technologies, and minerals, and exploring new forms of coexistence between species and territories.

Created in the context of the Interspecies exhibition, held in 2025 at MAC/CCB and curated by Mariana Pestana, the collective has been developing research projects that examine, test, and redefine methods, tools, and responsibilities within this emerging practice.

In this roundtable Beatrice Maggipinto, Bernardo Gaeiras, Carlos Pastor, Fernanda Soares da Costa, Katerina Inglezaki, and Mathilde Gouin will present the Interspecies Research Studio as a collective and discuss their projects with Frederico Duarte. Some of these projects are part of the Designing Sustainable Futures exhibition.

The work will also be presented later in 2026 at Interspecies Designers: Research in Practice, an exhibition organised at the Técnico Innovation Center in Lisbon.

The programme is open to the public and subject to venue capacity.

Registrations: dsf.exposicao@gmail.com

Organisation: ITI, Interactive Technologies Institute, Técnico ULisboa
Coordination: Frederico Duarte

[English Summary] The Interactive Technologies Institute (ITI) has launched Collaborations with Communities, an open call for community-based organisations developing projects that use digital technologies to generate positive social change. Selected projects will receive non-financial support from ITI, including scientific and technical knowledge, human resources, technological infrastructure, and access to a network of partners.
Projects may address one or more of the following areas: Social Inclusion, Sustainability, Health and Wellbeing, and Culture and Creativity. Applications are open until 19 June 2026, 17:00. The application form and submission process are available in Portuguese. For questions or support, please contact us through the form available below.

O Instituto de Tecnologias Interativas irá apoiar instituições de base comunitária no desenvolvimento de projetos que utilizem tecnologias digitais para gerar mudança social positiva. As candidaturas estão abertas até 19 de junho de 2026, às 17h00.

O Instituto de Tecnologias Interativas (ITI) lança a Open-Call “Colaborações com Comunidades“, uma iniciativa destinada a apoiar instituições de base comunitária no desenvolvimento de projetos que recorram a tecnologias digitais para responder a desafios sociais, culturais, ambientais e de saúde.

A chamada procura projetos inovadores, com duração até 12 meses, que partam das necessidades e aspirações das comunidades e que possam dar início a relações de colaboração de longo prazo entre o ITI e organizações da sociedade civil.

As propostas deverão enquadrar-se numa ou mais das seguintes áreas temáticas: Inclusão Social, Sustentabilidade, Saúde e Bem Estar, e Cultura e Criatividade.

O apoio do ITI não será financeiro direto. A instituição irá disponibilizar conhecimento científico e técnico, recursos humanos, infraestrutura tecnológica e a sua rede de parceiros. Este apoio poderá incluir, entre outros exemplos, o desenvolvimento de aplicações, websites ou objetos interativos; formação em competências digitais; orientação na descoberta e implementação de tecnologias; avaliação de impacto; pesquisa documental; apoio na procura de financiamento adicional; e criação de ligações com parceiros académicos, industriais e institucionais.

Após a submissão, as candidaturas passarão por uma pré-seleção interna do ITI, para identificar a sua adequação às competências disponíveis. Numa segunda fase, as próprias instituições candidatas participarão num processo de revisão por pares, ordenando as propostas submetidas. O ITI espera apoiar, pelo menos, uma candidatura em cada área temática.

As candidaturas devem ser submetidas através do formulário disponível até às 17h00 de 19 de junho de 2026.

Datas chave

18 de maio de 2026
Abertura da chamada

19 de junho de 2026, 17h00
Data limite para candidaturas

24 de junho de 2026
Pré-seleção do ITI

26 de junho a 3 de julho de 2026
Revisão por pares pelas instituições candidatas

7 de julho de 2026
Notificação dos resultados

Call to action

Para submeter uma candidatura, preencha o formulário disponível aqui:
[Formulário de Candidatura]

Para questões adicionais, contacte-nos através deste formulário:
[Formulário de Contacto]

ITI/LARSyS is at CHI 2026, with an impressive presence from researchers and collaborators across the programme.
This year’s presence includes:

• 🏆 1 Best Paper
• ⭐ 1 Honorable Mention
  
• 📄 8 full papers
• 🛠️ 6 workshops and meet-ups
• 📊 5 posters and demos

🏆 The Best Paper distinction was awarded to Towards Fluent Interaction with Cyber-Physical Architecture.
⭐ An Honorable Mention was awarded to EcoAssist: Embedding Sustainability into AI-Assisted Frontend Development.

Across the programme, these contributions engage with:

• 🌱 sustainability in code
• ⚖️ workers’ rights in platform systems
• ❤️ heartbeat as a social medium
• ♿ crip futures in self-tracking
• 🤖 the body in AI
• 👵 aging with dignity
• 🧏 play across hearing ability
• 🎮 horror as reflection
• 🌍 the Mediterranean as a place to do HCI differently

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📄 Full Papers (CHI ’26)

• Towards Fluent Interaction with Cyber-Physical Architecture
  (Best Paper Award)
  DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3772318.3791787
  ITI/LARSyS author: Neeta M. Khanuja
  
• EcoAssist: Embedding Sustainability into AI-Assisted Frontend Development
  (Honourable Mention Award)
  DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3772318.3791330
  ITI/LARSyS authors: André Barrocas, Nuno Jardim Nunes, Valentina Nisi
  
• Revisiting Worker-Centered Design: Tensions, Blind Spots, and Action Spaces
  DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3772318.3791128
  ITI/LARSyS authors: Shuhao Ma, Valentina Nisi, Nuno Jardim Nunes
  
• Social Play Between Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children and Hearing Peers: Learning from Children and School Ecosystems
  DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3772318.3791520
  ITI/LARSyS authors: Jing Zhao, Hugo Nicolau
  
• The Ocular Command Center: How Eye Responses to Luminance, Color, Tunneling, and Visual Suppression Mediate Users’ Physiological States in VR
  DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3772318.3791328
  ITI/LARSyS authors: Andreia Valente, Augusto Esteves
  
• Values Across Contexts: Understanding How Older Adults Enact What Matters Through Technology
  DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3772318.3791780
  ITI/LARSyS authors: Valentina Nisi, Neeta M. Khanuja
  
• “More Aware and More Curious to Understand”: Emotionally Challenging Experiences in Psychological Horror Games
  DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3772318.3790451
  ITI/LARSyS authors: Filipe Pinheiro Tomé, Ana Cristina Pires, Pedro F. Campos
  
• Design for Dis/Ability: A Crip Inquiry into Personal Energy Tracking
  DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3772318.3790404
  ITI/LARSyS author: Pedro Sanches

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🛠️ Workshops & Meet-ups (CHI EA ’26)

• A Meet-Up done the Mediterranean way: Prospects of the Mediterranean CHI Community
  DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3772363.3778810
  ITI/LARSyS author: Valentina Nisi
  
• CHI Stitch ’n B*tch: A Feminist HCI Meetup
  DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3772363.3778787
  ITI/LARSyS author: Ana O. Henriques
  
• Growing Bio-HCI at CHI: Exchanging Materials, Tools, Practices, and Artifacts
  DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3772363.3778679
  ITI/LARSyS author: Fernanda Soares da Costa
  
• Neurodiversity Meet-Up @ CHI: Building a Neuro-Affirming Community in HCI
  DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3772363.3778796
  ITI/LARSyS author: Patrícia Piedade
  
• Where is the Body in Designing (Through) AI? Frictions and Opportunities in Integrating AI with Soma Design
  DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3772363.3778774
  ITI/LARSyS author: Pedro Sanches
  
• Crossing the Academia–Practice Divide in Interaction Design
  DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3772363.3778879
  ITI/LARSyS author: José Abdelnour Nocera

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📊 Posters & Demos (CHI EA ’26)

• Enhancing Social Connection in Shared Audiovisual Experiences via Collective Heartbeat Haptic Feedback
  DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3772363.3798307
  ITI/LARSyS authors: Andreia Valente, Juliana Marcelino, Augusto Esteves
  
• Read The Way: Designing and Developing a Mobile Application to Facilitate and Promote Literary Tourism
  DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3772363.3799101
  ITI/LARSyS author: Augusto Esteves
  
• Operationalizing Self-Perceptions of Aging Using Reflection Probe and SPA Design Cards with HCI Practitioners
  DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3772363.3799060
  ITI/LARSyS authors: Neeta M. Khanuja, Valentina Nisi
  
• Slide.Bingo: From Passive Attendance to Active Listening Through AI-Generated Bingo
  DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3772363.3799376
  ITI/LARSyS authors: Hugo Nicolau, Ana Cristina Pires
  
• Beyond Immediate Evaluation: A Longitudinal Study of Learning Effects in an Educational Game
  DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3772363.3799341
  ITI/LARSyS authors: Cristiano França, Genesis Nobrega, Beatriz Jardim Peres, Pedro F. Campos, Frederica Gonçalves

The Interactive Technologies Institute (ITI/LARSyS) is part of MOVIDA (Movement and Virtual Intelligence for the Development and Accessibility of Artists and Audiences), a new European project that started on April 1, 2026 and runs until March 31, 2029. Coordinated by Tallinn University, the project explores how Artificial Intelligence and related technologies, including Virtual and Augmented Reality and embodied AI systems, can support contemporary dance practices.

MOVIDA focuses on building capacity for artists, expanding audience engagement, and improving accessibility for people with disabilities and mental health conditions. It also addresses ethical and responsible uses of AI, including copyright, data ownership, labour, and environmental impact, through a human-centred approach.

The project brings together 11 partners across cultural organisations, academic institutions, and accessibility-focused entities in five European countries. At ITI, the project involves Filipa Correia and Nuno Correia, with Nuno Correia serving as project coordinator at Tallin University.

MOVIDA builds on previous Creative Europe projects, including MODINA (2023–2026) and Moving Digits (2018–2020), and will be developed through activities such as labs, residencies, showcases, forums, podcasts, and an online knowledge and tools hub.

Project Details

• Start date: April 1, 2026
• End date: March 31, 2029
• Grant Agreement ID: 101255836-CREA-CULT-2025-COOP-2
• Coordinator: Tallinn University

Researchers from the Interactive Technologies Institute (ITI/LARSyS) presented several contributions at the 20th ACM Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction (TEI 2026), taking place in Chicago, United States.

TEI is one of the main international venues in Human–Computer Interaction dedicated to research on tangible interfaces, embodied interaction, and the integration of digital technologies with the physical world. The 2026 edition was organised under the theme “Tide + Tied”, exploring relationships between technology, environments, and embodied forms of interaction.

Researchers affiliated with ITI/LARSyS contributed to the conference with one full paper and three pictorials.

Full Paper:
Title: Supporting entrainment using latent space mappings and generative sound feedback during dyadic movement exercises
Authors: William Primett and Nuno N. Correia
https://doi.org/10.1145/3731459.3773328

Pictorials:

Title: Staying with the Underwater Trouble: Exploring the Hydrocommons through Freediving
Authors: Beatrice Maggipinto, Valentina Nisi, Nuno Jardim Nunes and Jessica Hammer
https://doi.org/10.1145/3731459.3774478

Title: Sketching More-than-human Times: Rethinking Temporal Representations through Embodied, Entangled, and Deep Time
Authors: Valentina Nisi, Marta Ferreira and Larissa Pschetz
https://doi.org/10.1145/3731459.3774481

Title: In-Situ Seeding: Entangling Place & Technology through Sensory Data Dialogues
Authors: Courtney N. Reed, Marta Ferreira, Mónica Mendes, Pedro Galvão-Ferreira, Mathilde Gouin, Fiona Bell and collaborators
https://doi.org/10.1145/3731459.3774489

ITI is also represented in the long-term organisation of the conference series. Augusto Esteves (ITI/LARSyS) serves on the TEI Steering Committee and will chair the next edition of the conference, ACM TEI 2027, which will take place in Lisbon.

More information about the conference programme can be found on the official TEI website:
https://tei.acm.org/2026/

Décio Damasceno Mendonça Alves, researcher at the Interactive Technologies Institute, has received the 5th edition of the +Valor Madeira Award, presented by the Assembleia Legislativa da Região Autónoma da Madeira.

The award recognized his doctoral thesis, “Previsão a muito curto prazo da velocidade e direção do vento para as operações de tráfego aéreo no Aeroporto da Madeira” (“Very Short-Range Forecasting of Wind Speed and Direction for Air Traffic Operations at Madeira Airport”). The research develops methods for short-term forecasting of wind conditions to support air traffic operations at the Madeira Airport. Given the demanding meteorological conditions that frequently affect the airport, the work contributes to improving operational safety and efficiency in air traffic management, strengthening a critical infrastructure for regional mobility and economic activity.

The doctoral research was conducted under the supervision of Morgado Dias, with co-supervision from Fábio Mendonça and Sheikh Mostafa, all researchers at the Interactive Technologies Institute. 

The +Valor Madeira Award recognises academic research with clear societal relevance. In this edition, the jury evaluated a record number of 53 submissions, and the winning prize includes a €5,000 monetary award.

This work illustrates the strategic relevance of scientific research for regional infrastructures. The Madeira Airport plays a central role in the region’s mobility, tourism, economy, and territorial cohesion. By addressing the complex meteorological conditions that affect its operation, the research contributes to strengthening operational safety and improving the efficiency of air traffic management. It demonstrates how scientific research can generate direct societal impact and support responses to concrete public challenges.

Images: Assembleia Legislativa da Região Autónoma da Madeira.