CEG-IST
From engineering to management science
Being the oldest Portuguese research centre in engineering management and management science, CEG-IST (Centro de Estudos de Gestão do Instituto Superior Técnico) is a research unit of IST, the largest Portuguese school of Engineering, Science and Technology, part of the Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal.
The centre is devoted to multi-disciplinary approaches linking and applying management science and the related fields of economics, industrial engineering and systems engineering, through the development of innovative methodologies and applied research and collaboration with industry and the public sector, both in Portugal and worldwide.
The research team currently consists of 30 (integrated) members, all with Ph.D., plus five corresponding researchers, four researchers in collaboration and 17 research students, organized into five multidisciplinary research groups: decision and information, economics and finance, operations and logistics, strategy and organizations, and sustainable development. The research projects couple well with Master and Ph.D. courses and students, providing real case studies as well as adequate scientific support. CEG-IST strongly benefits from its proximity to the Department of Engineering and Management of IST in both campuses of IST - Alameda and Tagus Park, in Lisbon Metropolitan Area.
The research team has developed strong networks with other national and international research institutions e.g. the London School of Economics and Political Science, Imperial College - London, University of Edinburg, Michigan State University, Carnegie Mellon University, the MIT, University of Karlsruhe (Germany), several Brazilian universities, several international and national companies, as well as several Portuguese public institutions, both from the Central and the local administration.
CEG-IST members produce a significant number of scientific papers every year, which are published in International peer reviewed journals (in 2010, 18 of these papers were published in ISI journals). An additional large number of papers presented to international conferences was published in their Proceedings, peer reviewed (62 in 2010). The large number of citations in international journals (over 200 in 2010, excluding self-citations) displays the quality of the research.
Research members are also involved in peer review of several of the most important journals of their areas of expertise, as well as organizers of international conferences.
The centre is continuously involved in different projects of which, in 2010, 14 were academic (nine international) and 16 were projects with industry and services (five international).
The centre is funded by the 'Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia' (FCT), but also by the international projects in which it is involved, as well as by the projects with industry.
Some of the researchers have been awarded prizes on a regular basis, thus recognizing the value of their achievements.
National and European research contracts
The following examples illustrate the several on-going research contracts:
• Cohort effects within firms, and their implications for labour market outcomes and the business cycle, a project with the University of Edinburg and Michigan State University funded by the Economic and Social Research Council - UK.
• Comparative Analysis of Enterprise Data (CAED): Industry Dynamics, Firm Performance, and Worker Outcomes, a COST project with the Central European University.
• COINVEST-Competitiveness, Innovation and Intangible Investment in Europe (FP7 EU - Project).
• Innovation and the Global Economy: An investigation of critical challenges for Intellectual Property, Strategy and Policy in IT and beyond.
• Resource allocation for management support: Interactive tools, models, and applications (RENOIR).
• The Influence of Higher Education on the Dynamics of Entering and Exiting Entrepreneurship: A Longitudinal Study of Portuguese Business-owners.
Collaboration with Industry and the public sector
The following examples illustrate the several on-going contracts with industry and public institutions:
• Multi-criteria approaches for project prioritization and resource allocation: Decision conferencing for project prioritization with MACBETH and resource allocation with EQUITY.
• CLC II - Scheduling of oil products distribution through pipelines and inventory management at a distribution centre.
• LogInv - Aiming at developing a generic model to deal with the global supply chain management with reverse flows.
• Optimal Planning & Scheduling of Multiproduct Oil Distribution Systems.
• Private health insurance in the European Union: a study for the European Commission.
• QQUIP (Quest for Quality and Improved Performance) is a five-year research initiative of The Health Foundation.
• Application of the Multi-services Hierarchical Model to Hospital.
• Multinational Firms and Working Conditions.
• Spatial planning at the regional and local levels in Portugal.
Participation in Scientific Organisations
The members of the Centre actively participate in the organization of international and national scientific events, are members of international scientific societies, as well as members of several journal editorial boards.
Seminar Series
The centre organizes a yearly seminars series on a regular basis on matters of interest to management science, involving national and international guest presenters.
Action areas
The research members of CEG-IST are currently engaged in several action areas, covering all the research areas and different expertises. These action areas include:
• Multi-criteria Decision Analysis, Risk Analysis, Portfolio Decision Analysis, Decision Conferencing.
• Development of methods and applications in decision and risk analysis; developing of management science methods to inform health care policy and management.
• Multi-objective network flow problem.
• Customer satisfaction methodologies and the development enhancement and integration of methodologies tools and practices in decision analysis and information systems.
• The use of information and communication technologies at the firm level.
• The impact of economic crises in the value added by technology.
• Corporate Social Responsibility and firms' decisions.
• Two-dimensional Signalling Advertising by Multiproduct Firms.
• Development of multivariate models for socio-economic planning.
• Regulation, price policies and cost-benefit analysis for renewable energies.
• Multidimensional models for replacement analysis.
• Marketing and Quality Management, namely Services Marketing, Branding and Consumer Behaviour.
• Sustainable Supply Chains - a multidisciplinary approach involving a framework including economic, environmental and social aspects.
• Planning and scheduling of multipurpose batch plants through optimization models.
• Reverse logistics, design planning and routing of reverse logistics systems.
• Health care: design of hospital networks and LTC care systems.