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Honourable Minister for the Environment, Land Planning and Regional Development,
Honourable Minister for Public Works, Transport and Communications,
Honourable Secretary of State for Science, Technology and Higher Education,
Honourable President of the National Civil Engineering Laboratory,

I am extremely pleased to attend this commemorative ceremony of the 60th anniversary of the National Civil Engineering Laboratory.

The many initiatives that marked, throughout this year, the celebrations now being closed, revealed the history of this institution, how it was able to serve society and establish its availability for the development of the Country.

Asserting itself since its very beginning as an institution at the front of the national scene of scientific research and technological innovation, the National Civil Engineering Laboratory assembled research centres, provided them with common features, disseminated its knowledge and became an active partner in the building of great national infrastructures.

It structured knowledge, opened up horizons, attracted skills and capabilities, accumulated the experience of generations, created, in effect, a solid technical and scientific culture which made it a reference for the country’s development.

A pioneer in the assertion of the public research institutions, LNEC was a true school for those who found in it the opportunity to become professionals, deepening knowledge and communicating values.

The stringency and the technical independence which have been the characteristics of LNEC confirm it as a relevant figure in the decision process of major national undertakings, deserving of the credit and trust on which its national and international image is based.

It attained prestige abroad as a reference in research and as a major engineering school. It promoted the relevance of new subjects, such as structural safety and quality management, in a multidisciplinary approach which associated ethics to engineering, and expanded its fields of influence to the assessment of the impact of technology on people’s lives, including environmental, financial and social aspects.

Narrow links to Universities, as well as intense international cooperation, powering human capital and the use of resources, were also circumstances which marked the actions developed by LNEC, along the lines which are today accepted as pivotal for the complete achievement of the mission of schools and research centres.

LNEC is an important State Laboratory. Allow me, on this occasion, to again emphasize, as I have done during the Route to Science, the importance of strategic investment in science and innovation.

In the face of the challenges of global competition, at a time when market integration, trade and capital movements are more intense than ever, the only answer which will allow us to win is based upon the qualification of people, upon the development of a new portfolio of activities and products with a substantial technological content, upon scientific research, and upon the spread of information technologies and entrepreneurial innovation.

In spite of the significant effort of public investment in R&D that Portugal has been making in the last decades, national achievement, when compared to other European Union Member States, is still insufficient, whether in terms of qualification of the Portuguese, or in research and innovation standards.

Careful reading of EU and OECD reports show that, more than low investment in R&D, the basis of our problems lies in the inefficiency of that investment and in the lack of balance of its composition, mainly financed by public funds and a reduced component of private investment.

It is for this reason that, in terms of R&D, it is not enough to do more but, specifically, to do much better.

We must recognize the merit, the excellence and the capability in the use of knowledge.

We require intense cooperation between the academic world and the entrepreneurial fabric, in order to exploit the commercial value of the results of research.

We require critical mass in the R&D units, indispensable for the internationalization of our scientific system.

We also require more researchers and more people involved in activities of the economy of knowledge, participating in international networks and in an increased dynamic mobility.

The Manuel Rocha Prize, awarded here today to five LNEC researchers, whom I especially congratulate, has evinced some of those who have become distinguished in this arduous and very competitive course.

LNEC, with its 60 years of history, has asserted itself as an example of excellence, internationalization, and cooperation with the private sector.

It is not by chance that an organization such as this asserts itself as an institution and becomes a decades old basis of reference. It was a permanent construction process, established by strong leadership, as shown by consulting the life and work of its Directors. They were men of science and technology as well as humanists, in the sense that they had full conscience of the relevance of their actions on society and of the mindful application of public means for the benefit of all.

An organization which commemorates six decades of existence and maintains an unique position in the national scene has an enormous responsibility, not only as to the need to show how it became adapted to the multiple succeeding contexts, but also as to how it views its future, answering the demands of the modern world and earning increased strength in a more than ever global environment.

There are no pre-established answers to the need for adaptation. Institutional structures have, in any case, to keep the necessary flexibility not to be touched by upheavals that could cause difficulty in the resolution of disruptions, as well as not to become crystallized in conventional models, falsely trusting that the splendour of the past will forgive their slowing down in the present.

A society needs institutions of which it may be proud. It must support them when so required, recognize their efforts and give them due merit. Only this way will it provide the incentive for others to follow in their steps, permitting them to be part of the bond that connects the different generations by cultural links, and by past achievements deserving of being remembered.

The history of LNEC is a history of the battle for the assertion of new mentalities, refusing to become beholden by vicissitudes which could hinder its action.

Open to society, awake to the demands of the future, it has been an institution able to serve the Country, rendering service, establishing partnerships, and courageously taking part in the resolution of the problems which are always brought about by development.

All of this, I repeat, brings it enormous responsibility, in the measure of its prestige and of the name it has conquered in its area of activity. Enormous responsibility for those that manage LNEC and work there, whose duty is the preservation of its values and its credibility.

LNEC is an institution that the Portuguese are proud of and it is important that it so continues in the future.

To commemorate LNEC’s 60th anniversary is not just to witness its capability to conquer resistance, its courage to ally scientific stringency to ethics and technological innovation. It is also to pay tribute to those who have dedicated to it their life and skills, by achieving useful work which has, and will surely continue, to mark many generations of engineers, scientists and Portuguese.

To all who work here, my congratulations and wishes that the coming decades may continue to benefit from the full achievement of the noble mission with which you have been trusted.