Manuel Heitor

Manuel Heitor is Minister for Science, Technology and Higher Education in the Government of Portugal since November 2015. From March 2005 to June 2011 he served as Secretary of State for Science, Technology and Higher Education.

Manuel Heitor is full Professor at Instituto Superior Técnico, IST, the engineering school of the University of Lisbon and was founder and director of the IST´s “Center for Innovation, Technology and Policy Research”, which was named in 2005 as one of the “Top 50 Global Centres of Research on Management of Technology” by the International Association for the Management of Technology, IAMOT. He coordinated, among others, the IST´s doctoral Programs in “Engineering and Public Policy, EPP” and in “Engineering Design and Advanced Manufacturing”. In 2011-12 he was a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University.

He earned a PhD at Imperial College, London, in 1985 in combustion research and did post-doctoral training at the University of California San Diego, followed by an academic career at IST, in Lisbon, where he pursued an initial research and teaching career in the area of energy and environment. Manuel Heitor served as Deputy-President of IST for the period 1993-1998 and, since the mid 90´s, has been involved in several initiatives on the study of science, technology and innovation policies, including higher education policies and management. Since 1995, he has been Research Fellow of the IC2 Institute of the University of Texas at Austin. He was a founding member of the S&T Council of the “International Risk Governance Council”, IRGC.