All about Engineering

SUPERIOR INSTITUTE OF ENGINEERING

What Does ISEP Offer?

ISEP IS ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION.

The Superior Institute of Engineering of Porto (ISEP) is part of the European Higher Education Area and designs its programmes according to CDIO and EUR-ACE standards. ISEP currently offers 11 BSc and 11 MSc degrees in different fields of engineering, plus a European Project Semester (ESP@ISEP) and several summer courses. ISEP offers 4 year Degrees and Masters Degree programs in English: Civil Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Computer Science.

WHAT IS ISEP

ISEP is a trademark of engineering education and innovation. Since 1852, we have been pioneering the training and specialization of engineers with a strong creative and entrepreneurial mind-set.

Our academic community combines ambitious and dynamic people, who believe in the potential of innovation and technology to promote sustainable development. We have over 6500 students and 500 staff motivated by the promise that engineering moves the world and creates opportunities. Students benefit from an excellent learning environment, a prestigious faculty, and quality infrastructures.

By exploring EUR-ACE and CDIO international best practices, we are creating opportunities for students to connect to the real world and develop academic projects with companies and research groups.

We are located in Asprela, Porto’s innovation district and just a 10-minute subway ride from downtown, and are connected to the world through our internationalization strategy. ISEP has more than a 100 international partnerships that allow students to enjoy Erasmus+ mobility, international exchange protocols with South American and Asian higher education institutions, and double-degrees with Brazilian and Spanish institutions. We are open to international students from across the globe.

Do you want to study at ISEP?

International students tell us what they like about studying at the Superior Institute of Engineering of Porto.

Living Abroad

A GATEWAY TO EUROPE

University Study in Europe partnering with ISEP, located in Porto, Portugal.

PORTUGAL

Portugal is Europe’s West Coast. Member of the European Union since 1986, we have a rich history and a long tradition of reaching out to the world. Our finest quality has always resided in the ability to combine dreams with hard work to create new possibilities.

International Focus

Fully aware we live and work in a complex and interdependent world, ISEP promotes an internationalization strategy that gives students and graduates a global view of opportunities. We endorse the European Higher Education Area, inviting students from around the world to study in Europe. Through transnational Eramus+ partnerships or other academic cooperation agreements, students and staff can enjoy a mobility exchange to study, train, gain work experience, or volunteer, while strengthening linguistic skills.

Although Portuguese is the fifth most spoken language in the world, the attention provided to international students from across the globe led us to start teaching some courses in English.

This attention to best practices is one of the reasons why we comply with EUR-ACE and CDIO standards. ISEP is also setting up a European project/internship network through PRAXIS and works in several multilateral projects and international programmes like Horizon2020, MITPortugal, CMU-Portugal.

As an open institution, we are always pleased to welcome international students, teachers, and researchers who wish to be part of our academic community.

History of ISEP

ISEP was founded in 1852 , the rise period of Portuguese liberalism, by the force of an idea of progress: Portugal, a country with a predominantly rural and service structure, needed to take a step forward. Was Fontes Pereira de Melo, Minister of Public Works, Trade and Industry, who launched the first public system of industrial education, based on educational idea for the development, where our headquarters, the Industrial School of Porto was one of two former, in comparison with the Polytechnic Academy, whose reference was the elitist model, academista and rhetoric at the University of Coimbra that, unable to respond to emerging needs, was being challenged by the most enlightened intellectuals.

In 1864, under the auspices of Minister Counselor John Chrysostom de Abreu e Sousa carried out an extensive renovation and expansion of industrial training. Teaching "superior" industrial is then divided into two parts: the first, including common general education to all arts, crafts and industrial professions, integrating two components: theoretical, taught at the school, and practical teaching, taught in state workshops or under agreement in private factories; the second included the specialized teaching certain arts and crafts, as well as several public services such as public works, mines and telegraphs.

Under this reform the industrial school passes the Industrial Institute of Porto , forming "teachers", "drivers" and "plant managers".

In 1881 , during a visit to the Port of King Louis the then Minister of the Kingdom Tomás Ribeiro, and the Minister of Public Works Rodrigues de Freitas, proposed the merger of the two top schools in the industrial education - the Academy of Porto and Polytechnica Industrial Institute of Porto - into one, called Polytéchnico Institute Porto.O School Board, considering that such a project was contrary to its historic route - refusing the proposed merger with Polytechnica Academy, thus giving the body an institutional culture that endures to today teach not only the know know, but also the know - how.

Throughout the period of the First Republic it was discussed whether Portugal should be essentially a country of industries or an agricultural country, by diluting this indecision the definition of an industrial policy that was stating abroad. And the advent of the New State does not significantly alter the status quo. It remains so great uncertainty situation, who is to last until almost our time.

The structure of industrial education will reflect just that: only between 1947 and 1950 redefines the role of the Industrial Institutes as part of an overhaul of industrial education, putting them at the pinnacle of industrial education structure, classifying their teaching "average technician industrial branch ", with the aim of training engineering technicians agents in all classical specialties provided with a profile that enables them to direct entry into the production system in the performance of top operational functions necessary for the nascent industrial development.

In 1974 , by Decree-Law 830/74 of December 31 became the Industrial Institutes in Higher Institutes of Engineering.

In the preamble of this decree-law it is recognized that "the Industrial Institutes are schools with a long history that formed generations of professionals who undoubtedly made a major contribution to the development of Portuguese industry."

It is therefore within this recognition that the institutes are inserted into the structure of higher education as independent schools have legal personality and administrative autonomy, becoming the Industrial Institute of Porto in the present Institute of Engineering of Porto, enabled the grant between others, of bachelor's degrees and a degree in engineering, which correspond to the professional titles of technical engineer and engineer.

​In 1989 the Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto is integrated into the subsystem Polytechnic, through its training model to integrate two different courses: the Bachelor's degree, with a duration of three years and the courses of Specialized Higher Studies with the duration of two years and access to tender documents, which, together with a bachelor's degree with him consistent, conferred the bachelor's degree.

In 1998 , under a new reform of polytechnics, the ISEP shall administer the current degree bietápicas characterized by its structure in two cycles - a bachelor's degree with a duration of three years - which enables integration into the labor market , followed by a second two - year cycle - frequented mainly after working arrangements - for obtaining the degree.

In 2006 , by virtue of Portugal's accession to the Bologna Declaration, the ISEP will provide a new study plan, consisting of undergraduate and master's degrees in various areas of engineering, thus initiating a new cycle of its long history.

​n 2008 , Anibal Cavaco Silva, President of Portugal, exalts the quality of the work developed in ISEP for the Roadmap for Science. The passage through ISEP is the first official visit by a Portuguese head of state to a polytechnic. The ISEP assigns the first degree of post-Bologna master. Perpetua is the motto "Know - How".