University of Minho

The pre-ECIS workshops and the Faculty Consortium are planned to take place in the University of Minho in Guimarães. The School of Engineering, and in particular the Department of Information Systems, offers comfortable rooms to host these events, providing participants the experience of the campus and its facilities. The campus is within walking distance from the city center and most hotels, although it is possible to hire a shuttle service to fetch and take participants to their hotels in the city.

The University of Minho (UMinho) is one of the Portuguese new universities created in the early 1970s. Currently it has around 20,000 students enrolled in the degree programs offered by its eleven schools that cover most areas of knowledge (sciences, engineering, psychology, education, social sciences, economics and management, law, humanities and arts, architecture, medicine, nursing).

The University is named after the Northwest region of Portugal where it is located. The University campus, and other main infrastructures, are situated in the cities of Braga and Guimarães. The region has a strong tradition of vibrant entrepreneurship rooted in a rich history associated to the Roman empire, to the Christianisation of the Iberic Peninsula and to the foundation of the Portuguese nation.

In its establishment, back in 1974, UMinho sought to set up its strategy taking into consideration the socio-economic characteristics of the region and paying attention to emerging fields of knowledge with major potential for development and consolidation of the small and medium enterprises that constitute the majority of Minho’s economic fabric. By the time, informatics was such an emerging academic field. At UMinho informatics emerged associated to the areas of industrial management and control, areas that gave origin to several degree programs and departments related to computers and to informatics.

The courses and research projects have a strong international reputation. UMinho is a targeted research university, committed to the value chain of knowledge, in other words: Research, Development and Innovation. It also points to the socio-economic environment, with many successful partnerships in research, cultural and socio-economic development projects.

Centro Cultural Vila Flor

Centro Cultural Vila Flor is particularly suitable for large events. It is a congress center in the city center. The auditoriums of the Centro Cultural Vila Flor, and its magnificent foyers, are geared to a variety of requests, from conferences, seminars, lectures and colloquia.

The Great Hall has a capacity of 800 seats. In addition to a bar for coffee break services, the Great Hall has two foyers, for reception of participants and a cloakroom service. The Great Hall can be divided into two smaller auditoriums for conducting panels. The Small Auditorium offers 200 seats, space for the secretarial and foyers with bar for coffee break services.

In addition to the auditorium, the Centro Cultural Vila Flor has four meeting rooms, with natural and artificial light, and equipped with air conditioning. Each room can be furnished and structured according to the specific needs of each event. The foyer adjacent to the rooms can also be used as exhibition space.