Antonio Dias de Figueiredo

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Antonio Dias de Figueiredo is a retired professor of Information Systems at the Faculty of Science and Technology of the University of Coimbra, Portugal, and a senior researcher at its Center for Informatics and Systems (CISUC), where he concentrates on the "Social Dimension of Information Systems", "Technologies and Innovation in Education", "Strategy and Quality in Higher Education", "History and Philosophy of Engineering" and "Projective Research Methods". He also acts as an independent consultant in these areas.

From 1984 to 2007, he was a Full Professor at the Faculty of Science and Technology of the University of Coimbra, where he created the CISUC, in 1992, and, in 1994, the Department of Informatics Engineering. He co-founded in 1992 Instituto Pedro Nunes (IPN), a prominent industry-university interface and enterprise-incubation institute. Part of his research and diffusion of innovation takes place in collaboration with CISUC and IPN.

He was Vice-President for Western Europe of the Intergovernmental Informatics Program of UNESCO, Paris, between 1994 and 1996. He integrated for four years the NATO Special Program Panel on Advanced Educational Technology of the NATO Science Committee, Brussels. He has participated in various European projects, both as a partner and as a science advisor, and acted on various occasions as a consultant to the European Commission in matters regarding the definition of strategies for Information and Communication Technologies in Education. He has collaborated with OECD on various instances in initiatives regarding Information and Communication Technologies in Education. He was the Chairman of PROMETEUS (PROmoting Multimedia access to Education and Training in EUropean Society), a memorandum of understanding promoted by the European Commission between 2000 and 2001. In 2004, he was the chairman of the Context & Learning special interest group of the European network of excellence Kaleidoscope.

He was the proponent, in 1985, of the MINERVA Project, the Portuguese national computers in schools program, which he coordinated during its pilot three years. He was the chair of the Accreditation Committee for Informatics Engineering of the Portuguese Engineers Association, in 1998/2001 and 2004/2007. He chaired the Evaluation Committee for Informatics Engineering and Computer Science of the Foundation of Portuguese Universities, and chaired R&D panels for the evaluation of projects submitted to the Portuguese Innovation Agency. In 2012/2013, he chaired the IT External Assessment Committee of the Higher Education Assessment and Accreditation Agency (A3ES).

He has been awarded a Honoris Causa by the Portuguese Open University, and the Sigillum Magnum by the University of Bologna, Italy. He also received the title of Information Society Personality of the Year 2005, awarded by APDSI, Oracle Portugal, and Sun Portugal.

He has been a speaker and has lectured extensively at national and international events. He is the author of over three hundred papers and contributed with chapters to several books published both at home and abroad. His most recent international book publications include the book "Managing Learning in Virtual Settings: the Role of Context" (2006), and the chapters "Qualitative Research and the Challenges of Complexity", in Volume 621 of the Springer Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing series (2017), "On the Historical Nature of Engineering Practice", in “Engineering Practice in a Global Context: Understanding the Technical and the Social” (2013), "The Sustainability of e-Collaboration", in "The Encyclopedia of E- Collaboration" (2008), and "Action-Research and Design in Information Systems: Two Faces of a Single Coin", in "Information Systems Action-Research: An Applied View of Emerging Concepts and Methods" (2007). He is one of the two authors of the US Patent 7319998 B2, "Method and System for Supporting Symbolic Serendipity". He is a member of the editorial and advisory boards of the "International Journal of e-Collaboration", the "Portuguese and Brazilian Journal of Management", and the journal "Educação, Formação & Tecnologias”.

He graduated in Electrical Engineering from the University of Porto, Portugal, in 1969, and obtained his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Manchester, U.K., in 1976.