University of Coimbra and Empowered Startups sign agreement to attract foreign direct investment
UC joins the Canadian company's network of partnerships to bring in investors for research and innovation projects.
The University of Coimbra (UC) and Empowered Startups, a Canadian multinational company, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Tuesday (16) to promote foreign direct investment (FDI) and new scientific research projects. With this agreement, the UC joins the network of universities and polytechnic institutes that already collaborate with Empowered Startups in Portugal.
Empowered Startups, with a branch office in Portugal (Évora) since 2019, brings to the country high-level foreign professionals with entrepreneurial experience, business investment capacity and leadership skills. These entrepreneurs and business leaders directly fund scientific research projects and use the results of this research to create new products, services and innovative solutions.
This work allows foreign direct investment to flow into higher education institutions, establishing them as technology partners for these new businesses.
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"We are thrilled to be partnering with the University of Coimbra," said Christopher Lennon, President of Empowered Startups. "We know the history and high quality of the work carried at this institution, and we are certain that this will be an extremely valuable partnership for the entrepreneurs we work with. We'll now be helping to attract investment and highly skilled people so that new global businesses can be created".
"The agreement we've now signed with Empowered Startups is another contribution to fulfilling one of the pillars of the University of Coimbra's mission: the transfer of knowledge to society," says UC Rector Amílcar Falcão. "We are a leading university, with a high number of patents and a large number of projects that can generate added value. I believe that this partnership can be very fruitful for everyone," he adds.
The Minister for Territorial Cohesion, Ana Abrunhosa, who also attended the ceremony, stressed that these partnerships "create global companies" and recalled that "there is no progress without knowledge, without research and development, and therefore we must invest in our higher education institutions".
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During the ceremony, Francesco Berrettini, Director of Partnerships and Projects at Empowered Startups-Portugal, said that "Coimbra is a key partner" for the company for several reasons, including "the global relevance and impact of technology transfer".
In February 2023, Empowered Startups handed over a letter of commitment to the Portuguese government, promising to attract 250 entrepreneurs and €10 million in foreign direct investment to the country. So far, the company has attracted 60 entrepreneurs and more than three million euros in investment to Portuguese universities and polytechnic institutes.
