The Convento de São Francisco, in Coimbra, is hosting the FCCN 2025 Conference, in an edition marked by record-breaking results and several new features. Find out all about the first day of knowledge sharing.
The start of the work
The the sixteenth edition of Jornadas FCCNthe annual event that brings together 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 spread around the cloister of the Convento de São Francisco and focused on three themes: Open Access, Digital Certificates and Academic Repositories .
In the Almedina Room, the manager of the FCCN service, FCT's digital services, João Mendes Moreira, began by welcoming the participants to the FCCN Conference, and then explained the aim of the session. "We're going to focus on the new Open Access Policy [of FCT]clarifying your questions and sharing use cases", he explained, adding that this practical session would end with a series of exercises.
Nearby, in the Sofia Room, the manager of Portugal's Open Access Scientific Repositories (RCAAP), Paulo Lopes, explained that the session would be dedicated to some of the procedures associated with migrating this service to DSpace version 7. Raquel Truta then explained that the session would include practical cases, the testimony of a repository manager and questions.
In the Mondego Room, the session focused on what's new in the world of the RCTS Certificates service, with the integration of the new HARICA certification body. Pedro Simões explained that this solution emerged within the scope of the European community of national education and research networks , having been created by FCCN's Greek counterpart, FCT's digital services (GRNET).
During the rest of the day, other services were also highlighted, including b-on, RCTSaai, Arquivo.pt and Polen, among others.
A stage for innovation
In one of the spaces at the FCCN Days, a phrase is prominently displayed: "Give your ideas a voice". The invitation embodies one of the main new features of the event in 2025 - the creation of the Innovation Hub, described as a space "that gives participants a voice and promotes close dialog".
The presentations take place during the event's breaks and last 15 minutes. Diversity is also a hallmark of the initiative. The first presentations, made during lunchtime today, focused on topics such as video processing, automation or collaboration, for example. Representatives from FCCN, FCT 's digital services, Universidade Aberta, .PT and Arditi, among others, will be on stage throughout the three days of the event.
Educast was one of the services that visited this space today, with the team from FCCN, FCT's digital services sharing some of the technological innovations that have been implemented.
"We presented the Educast Recorder and the work we've been doing on video transcoding using GPUs," explains FCCN Multimedia Services manager Nelson Dias: "This allows videos to be processed two and a half times faster on average - that's the main difference for the user." João Carvalho and Fabrício Cunha were the team members who presented these papers.
For Nelson Dias, the Innovation Hub is "an interesting space to showcase projects in a more informal way". The idea behind this innovation, he adds, is to be a space "open to the community, so that researchers, students or teachers can share work and ideas, creating synergies".
The Multimedia Services manager also gives an example that concretizes this idea of informal sharing. "For example, I gave a presentation on the subject of the 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's illustrative of the sharing of ideas that is intended in this space," he concludes.
With a focus on AI
Throughout the three days of the event, several sessions will address this topic of Artificial Intelligence. Today, two afternoon sessions shared first-person experiences with AI technologies and a round table on the European AI factories projectwhich 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 the role that Portugal will play in this initiative. The national application is part of a joint initiative by Spain, Portugal, Turkey and Romania, which envisages the creation of an interface structure in Portuguese territory, with dedicated human resources, to provide high-value services and support for small and medium-sized enterprises in the use of this computing infrastructure and the development of artificial intelligence applications.
The FCCN Days continue tomorrow with the Opening Session in the Grand Auditorium of the Convento de São Francisco, starting at 09h00. See the full program here.
The first testimonies
This is the fifth time in a row that Renato Rebelo has taken part in the FCCN Days. The Ispa - Instituto Universitário professional explains why participation has been continuous: "It's an interesting event to keep up to date with FCCN services, but also to find out about new proposals, trends, innovations and partners."
On the other hand, he adds, this is also a way of sharing the experiences of the 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 show what we've done," he adds.
Renato Rebelo sees the FCCN Days as an event of "growing quality and adherence", which has a direct impact on the life of the institutions. In the case of Ispa, he says, there are several partnerships that have emerged from the contact made at the event, and "the expectation is always to take something more from here".
