Lisbon and Oeiras to have Ocean Campus

The Champalimaud and Calouste Gulbenkian Foundations are to set up a €300 million Ocean Campus Technology Campus Hub through concession contracts with the Port of Lisbon.

The initial upfront investment for the project will be €70 million for the redevelopment of the Doca de Pedrouços dock. It will involve research centres, a university hub and new public spaces. The Ocean Campus will also involve the redevelopment of 65 hectares of land by the Tagus river between Lisbon and Oeiras.
The main complex will be a scientific and AI hub and will also include the new Blue Business School, a new university hub linked to research on marine matters, as well as a project for a hotel.
Concessionary protocols were signed between the Lisbon Port Authority and the foundations of Calouste Gulbenkian and Champalimaud.
Presenting the project, the Minister for Infrastructure and Housing,Pedro Nuno Santos, explained that the main goal was to “foster innovation and highly qualified and disruptive research”.
The upfront investment to position the Port of Lisbon as a “facilitator of blue growth” will be €70 million, but the total investment should add up to €300 million, including the dockland redevelopment, the new educational establishments. A competitive tendering competition has already been launched.
Leonor Beleza, president of the Champalimaud Foundation, said “the main goal is to find means of artificial intelligence and software which can be developed into treatments in areas of medicine linked to brain illnesses, neurology and psychiatry. The use of algorithms and machines has revolutionised medicine and promises to do much more than is now currently within our reach”.