New Degree in Aerospace Engineering at University of Porto is go for launch

The Faculty of Engineering at the University of Porto (FEUP) has already been given the green light by the Higher Education Assessment and Accreditation Agency (A3ES), the body responsible for assessing courses taught in Portugal, to launch a new degree in Aerospace Engineering. The opening of the new course was announced by FEUP, which explains that 30 places will be available in the 2024/2025 National Competition for Access to Higher Education. Applications open on July 22.

In recent years, the Aerospace Engineering course has been at the top of the list of courses with the highest grades. In 2023, the inaugural year of the Aerospace Engineering course at the University of Minho, all the vacancies were filled in the first stage, and the last student to be admitted had a grade average of 18.86. However, the ranking was revised in the second stage, with the last Aerospace Engineering student at Instituto Superior Técnico being admitted with a grade average of 19.2. At the University of Aveiro, the grade average was 18.84.

If this scenario repeats itself this year, FEUP could be set to have three of the courses with the highest grades in its academic programme, adding Aerospace Engineering to Industrial Engineering and Management and Bioengineering.

In a statement published on FEUP’s website, the university stated that it wants “more and better national and international students”, offering future students “a holistic view of the field based on the main technological challenges we face, allowing them to contribute to the preliminary design, manufacture and testing of aerospace systems”.

Albertino Arteiro, head of FEUP’s Aerospace Engineering Bachelor’s Degree, explains the creation of the new course as a result of the growing attractiveness of the sector, but also the existence of public policies, such as the Portugal Space 2030 Strategy, which “prove the need for a solid, high-quality training offer”. In the case of the Faculty of Engineering, this offer “is based on 20 years of research at the highest level with the main companies in the aerospace sector, such as Airbus or Embraer”, he adds.

For the President of the Portuguese Space Agency, Ricardo Conde, strengthening training capacity in the field of Aerospace Engineering “is fundamental to guaranteeing that Portugal will have qualified labour to sustain the development of the national space ecosystem”. “The Portuguese Space Agency has been promoting several initiatives for younger and younger audiences, trying to encourage them towards a future linked to space, and the increase in supply in this educational field, which results from the increase in demand for these degrees, confirms that we are on the right track.” Ricardo Conde is referring to initiatives such as Astronaut for a Day, which is already in its third edition, the European Rocketry Challenge – EuRoC, which returns to Ponte de Sor and the Santa Margarida Military Camp in October, and more recently the Cubesat Portugal competition, for which registration is ongoing.

Furthermore, the President of the Portuguese Space Agency emphasises that “it’s never too much to remember that the space sector isn’t just made up of engineers, particularly engineers specialising in aerospace. In order to grow sustainably and globally, we need highly qualified professionals in a wide variety of fields: biology, medicine, geology, law, communication or management, for example. Likewise, we need new companies and new projects that foster innovation and keep young people in the national market.”

For several years, the Instituto Superior Técnico, which has been teaching Aerospace Engineering since 1991, was the only higher education institution with training in this field. Portugal now has four courses dedicated to Aerospace Engineering – totalling almost 250 vacancies nationwide – in addition to the Aeronautical Engineering Bachelor’s Degrees offered by the University of Beira Interior and Atlântica – University Institute.