The following are already known: winners of the 8th edition of the Arquivo.pt Award, which annually recognizes innovative projects that utilize information preserved on Arquivo.pt. This award is granted by the digital service of the Foundation for Science and Technology, developed through FCCN.
The first prize, worth 10 thousand euros, was awarded to the project “My Region – Your Municipal Portal“, developed by Rúben Almeida, Ricardo Campos (University of Beira Interior) and Sérgio Nunes (University of Porto). The research was designed to strengthen the connection between citizens and local authorities, promoting civic participation and combating abstention in local elections, through the centralization of electoral and news information about local government.
The platform's main objective is to make the local election process more transparent and accessible, providing content on the portal from 1976 to 2021, by municipality and parish, including news from media outlets ranging from the election process during the campaign to reports on the elected officials.
Second place was awarded to the work Memor.pt, by Joaquim Matoso, a platform that organizes historical content from web Portuguese in educational and accessible digital experiences. This project stood out for promoting digital literacy and enhancing national digital memory and received 3 thousand euros.
Users of this platform can explore pages dedicated to various topics, such as housing, democracy, culture, among others, thus facilitating access to digitally preserved historical content.
The third position, awarded 2 thousand euros, was attributed to the project Narrative Monitoring, by Erik Bran Marino, Rafael Prezado, Ana Sofia Ribeiro and Renata Vieira. The team developed an in-depth analysis of the evolution of conspiracy narratives about migration between 1996 and 2021, using advanced data analysis and interactive visualization techniques.
This project used Arquivo.pt as its primary source, developing a methodology that combines different techniques, from web archiving to statistical analysis, to classify and analyze thousands of documents where the themes of migration and demography are addressed.
Honorable mentions for the recognition of innovative projects
The 8th edition of the Arquivo.pt Award also recognized three initiatives with honorable mentions, awarded by partner organizations, which sought to recognize significant contributions in different areas: education, decentralized technology, and historical memory. These projects demonstrate the diversity of possible applications based on Arquivo.pt's resources, reinforcing its cross-cutting utility in society.
THE Commemorative Commission for the 50th Anniversary of April 25th awarded its honorable mention, worth 5 thousand euros, to the project April 25th Archive, authored by Miguel Garcia.
This is a website which brings together journalistic articles about figures, events and movements linked to April 25, 1974. The contents were collected from multiple news sources online and thematically structured, allowing users to explore, for example, the "artists" section and find entries like Adriano Correia de Oliveira, accompanied by digitally preserved images and news. This platform allows users to revisit the past through web archived, in an accessible way.
The Aveiro Media Competence Center (AMCC) distinguished the project Archived Studies, by Filipe Oliveira João and Paulo Cabrita, whose main objective is to promote the use of Arquivo.pt in a pedagogical context.
Organized by subject and school year, the platform allows users, students, and teachers to register and save thematic searches for later reference. Based on a public and open digital collection, it promotes digital inclusion and offers a new type of page-based teaching resource. web archived.
For example, research on the “25th of April” movement aimed at 8th-grade students in the History subject provides preserved authentic documents, encouraging critical learning with historical digital sources.
The honorable mention awarded by the DNS.PT Association was given to the project ArchiveChain, developed by Bruno Cotrim as part of his Master's dissertation in Computer Engineering (Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon), under the supervision of Bernardo Ferreira (Faculty of Sciences) and Miguel Matos (Instituto Superior Técnico).
The project proposes an innovative solution: a blockchain decentralized dedicated to the archive of web Portuguese. On ArchiveChain, any citizen can contribute to the preservation of digital heritage by archiving pages from Arquivo.pt. Participants are rewarded with cryptoassets proportional to their contribution, promoting active and distributed participation.
The platform was designed to operate in a more energy-efficient manner, avoiding the high consumption associated with blockchains traditional, and integrates smart contracts into its internal operations.
This year's edition of the Arquivo.pt Award saw 36 entries in the competition, all based on data extracted from Arquivo.pt. The jury, comprised of experts in the fields of science, technology, history, and ecology, evaluated the projects and selected the winners based on the criteria of innovation, applicability, and social impact of the proposals.
The official awards ceremony will take place on July 11, 2025, at 5 p.m., during the closing session of the Science Meeting 2025, at Nova SBE, in Carcavelos.
Since 2018, the Arquivo.pt Award has recognized 36 projects and awarded more than 100 thousand euros in prizes, reinforcing FCT’s commitment to the preservation and enhancement of Portuguese digital memory.
Visit the website Arquivo.pt, for more information.
