The Convent of São Francisco, in Coimbra, hosts the Jornadas FCCN 2025, in an edition marked by record-breaking events and several new features. Learn all about the first day of knowledge sharing.
The beginning of the work
It started today the sixteenth edition of the FCCN Conferences, the annual event that promotes the meeting of the teaching and research community served by FCCN, FCT's digital services. In 2025, the record number of participants in this event was broken., with around 900 registrations.
The work began with three parallel sessions that took place around the cloister of the Convent of São Francisco and focused on three themes: Open Access, Digital Certificates and Academic Repositories.
In the Almedina Room, the FCCN service manager, FCT digital services, João Mendes Moreira, began by welcoming the participants of the FCCN Conference, then explaining the objective of this session. “Let’s focus the new Open Access Policy [of the FCT], clarifying your questions and sharing use cases,” he explained, adding that this practical session would conclude with a set of exercises.
Nearby, in Sala Sofia, the manager of Open Access Scientific Repositories in Portugal (RCAAP), Paulo Lopes, explained that the session would be dedicated to some of the procedures associated with migration of this service to DSpace version 7. Raquel Truta later explained that the The session would include practical cases, the testimony of a repository manager and the clarification of doubts.
In the Mondego Room, the session focused on the latest developments in the world of RCTS Certified services, with the integration of the new certifying entity HARICA. Pedro Simões explained that this solution arose within the scope of the European community of national networks teaching and research, having been created by the Greek counterpart of FCCN, digital services of FCT (GRNET).
During the rest of the day, the current affairs of other services were also highlighted, namely b-on, RCTSaai, Arquivo.pt and Polen, between others.
A stage for innovation
In one of the spaces at Jornadas FCCN, a phrase is highlighted: “Give voice to your ideas”. The invitation embodies one of the event's main new features in 2025 – the creation of the Innovation Hub, described as a space “which gives a voice to participants and promotes a close dialogue”.
Presentations take place during the event's breaks and last 15 minutes. Diversity is also a hallmark of the initiativeThe first presentations, held during today's lunch hour, focused on topics such as video processing, automation, and collaboration. Representatives from FCCN, the company's digital services company, will take to the stage throughout the three-day event. FCT, Universidade Aberta, .PT and Arditi, among others.
Educast was one of the services featured in this space today, with the team from this FCCN service, FCT's digital services, sharing some of the technological innovations that have been implemented.
“The Educast Recorder and the work we've been doing on GPU-based video transcoding”, explains FCCN's Multimedia Services manager, Nelson Dias: “This allows videos are processed two and a half times faster, on average – that is the main difference for the user.” João Carvalho and Fabrício Cunha were the team members who presented these communications.
For Nelson Dias, the Innovation Hub is “an interesting space to showcase projects, in a more informal way”. The idea behind this new development, he adds, is to be a space “open to the community, so that researchers, students and teachers can share work and ideas, creating synergies.”
The Multimedia Services manager also gives an example that embodies this idea of informal sharing. “I gave, for example, a presentation on the topic of sonification of scientific data, focusing on a slightly different topic that shows how we can look at the data we present in a different way, finding new patterns and sound interpretations,” says the Educast manager. “I think it illustrates the sharing of ideas that is intended in this space”, he concludes.
Focusing on AI
Over the three days of the event, several sessions will address the topic of Artificial Intelligence. Today, two afternoon sessions shared first-person experiences with AI technologies and a round table about the European AI factories project, which seeks to accelerate the adoption of these technological solutions in strategic sectors.
In this session, the general coordinator of FCCN, FCT's digital services, João Nuno Ferreira, detailed Portugal's role in this initiative. The national application is part of a joint initiative of Spain, Portugal, Türkiye and Romania, foreseeing the creation of an interface structure in Portuguese territory, with dedicated human resources, for the provision of high-value services and support to Small and Medium-sized Enterprises in the use of this computational infrastructure and the development of artificial intelligence applications.
The FCCN Conference continues tomorrow with the Opening Session in the Grand Auditorium of the Convent of São Francisco, starting at 9:00 a.m. See the full program. here.
The first testimonies
This is Renato Rebelo's fifth consecutive participation in the FCCN Conferences. The Ispa – University Institute professional explains why he has participated consistently: "It's an interesting event to keep us up to date with FCCN's services, but also to learn about new proposals, trends, innovations, and partners."
On the other hand, he adds, this is also a way of sharing experiences carried out by various higher education institutions in the area of technology applied to knowledge. “It's always good to know what other colleagues are implementing and to share what we've done”, he adds.
Renato Rebelo sees the FCCN Days as an event with “increasing quality and adherence”, that has a direct impact on the lives of institutions. In the case of Ispa, he says, several partnerships have emerged from the contact made at the event, “the expectation is always to take something more from here.”
