Who we are

Spread across
30
countries

Divided into
84
Local Groups

Include over
3300
students

Teams

Competitions & Academic

IT

Marketing

Human Resources

Corporate Relations

Meet our members

The XXIX Board of BEST Porto

Miguel Pereira

Vice-President for External Services

Matilde Silva

Vice-President for Human Resources

David Barbosa

President

Sara Alves

Secretary

Gonçalo Almeida

Treasurer

The Management

Leonor Costa

Corporate Relations Coordinator

Margarida Prata

Design Coordinator

Carlota Carneiro

Competitions & Academic Coordinator

Sara Rodrigues

Public Relations Coordinator

João Gomes

IT Coordinator

Competitions

Engineering Competitions are events where teams of students use their technical, social and communication skills to fulfill a specific task or case. In these competitions teams of students compete to provide the most optimised solution in terms of performance, cost and innovation under specific conditions (time, situation, materials, etc). These criteria differ depending on the competition category, such as:

• TEAM DESIGN
• HACKATHON

The key factors at play to successfully face these challenges are creativity, adaptation and imagination!

Educational Involvement

Developing students is our mission, so what better way is there to achieve this than to try to improve education?

• Through the Educational Involvement Department, BEST strives to listen to the students' ideas on what can be changed in their universities, study programmes or curricula. BEST is eager to be in close collaboration with the stakeholders of higher education, letting them know about innovative solutions, coming from the main receivers of education: students.
• To gather the students' opinions, BEST organises BEST Symposia on Education (BSE), conducts surveys, and interacts with local students by means of the LBGs. The outcomes of the discussions are gathered afterwards and later presented at international conferences on education, in the form of scientific papers.
• In parallel, Local BEST Groups organise Local Events on Education (LEoEs) where students have the opportunity to discuss topics concerning their own university, educational system or other local topics.

We strive to stay up-to-date in this field, attending several international conferences per year, getting to know the state-of-the-art topics, and taking the opportunity to network with relevant higher educational institutions and individuals.

BEST Courses

Throughout the whole year BEST organises different activities where students of technology from member universities get the chance to:

• Complement their knowledge in different fields of study
• Visit companies, industrial plants and research centres
• Take part in case studies
• Follow interesting classes covering many different technology fields, economics, marketing and management
• Receive ECTS credits in recognised courses

In these events, participants attend lectures given by the university's teaching staff or by experts from companies. At the end of the course students take an exam, which is designed to evaluate the participants' success.

Types of BEST Courses

A BEST Course is optimised to provide new knowledge or skills for participants, taught by professionals. There are many subtypes of BEST Courses:

BEST Courses on Technology aim to increase and widen the professional knowledge of the participant in a certain field of technology or modern technological tool.

BEST Courses on Career Related Skills contain non-technological subjects that develop personal skills in topics linked with work methods, communication techniques, marketing, economics, project and organisation management and other such soft skills, stressing practical work.

BEST Courses on Applied Engineering help participants put theoretical knowledge into practice. They work in different teams and solve specific time-bounded tasks, with limited resources, presenting their solutions at the end.

You can find list of BEST Courses to apply in the list of courses page.

Local Events