Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Coimbra

"ISEC" redirects here. For other uses, see ISEC (disambiguation).

Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Coimbra

Motto	Inovação, Sucesso, Empreendedorismo, Criatividade
Type	Polytechnic Institute
Established	1965 (polytecnic 1988)
President	Nuno Miguel Fonseca Ferreira
Vice-president	Jorge Barbosa
Students	~4000
Location	Coimbra , Portugal
Campus	Rua Pedro Nunes, Quinta da Nora, 3030-199
Colors
Website	isec.pt

The Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Coimbra (ISEC) is an higher education polytechnic institution of engineering, based in Coimbra, Portugal. It belongs to the Polytechnical Institute of Coimbra, although with a great level of administrative, financial, and pedagogic autonomy.

History

Its origins backs to the creation of the Industrial Institute of Coimbra (Instituto Industrial de Coimbra) created in September 1965 as a non-higher education institute of vocational education.

Before 1974 and the approval of decree Decreto-Lei 830/74 of 31 December 1974, this current polytechnic school, was not a higher education institution. It was an industrial school of vocational education until 1974.

It was integrated into the polytechnic subsector in 1988, and incorporated into the newly created Polytechnical Institute of Coimbra. It conferred 3-years bacharelato degrees in several technical engineering specializations, until the late 1990s. At this time new legal decrees were adopted by Portuguese State (Administrative Rule 413A/98 of 17 July 1998), and it started to award 3 + 2 licenciaturas bietápicas (bacharelato plus one or two extra years, conferring the licenciatura degree - a degree that had been awarded exclusively by the universities). In the mid-2000s ISEC adopted new more selective admission rules which were imposed to every Portuguese higher education institution by the State, excluding for the first time in its history the applicants with negative admission marks (in Portugal admission marks to higher education institutions are based on a combination of high school marks, and results of the entrance exams, and competition is based in a numerus clausus system). However, in many cases, like other polytechnic courses from several other institutions of its kind across the country, it started to require admission entrance exams in fields not directly related with the course (for instance, an electrical engineering or computer engineering course allows a biology entrance exam instead of mathematics and/or physics, unlike what is seen in most universities for the same fields). This was the main reason many engineering courses awarded by several Portuguese polytechnic institutions, even those awarding a second cycle polytechnic masters' degree in engineering, were never accredited by Ordem dos Engenheiros. In other polytechnic fields outside ISEC, like in ISCA accountancy and management institute, history or geography entrance exams are allowed instead of mathematics and economics, unlike what is seen in most university courses in similar fields. These criteria ambiguity and the lower standards in polytechnic education and admission, were fiercely criticised by education personalities like universities' rectors.

After 2006, with the approval of new legislation and the Bologna Process, ISEC, like any other polytechnic or university institution of Portugal, is legally able to provide a first 3-year study cycle, known as licenciatura plus a second 2-year cycle which confer the master's degree (in some cases this higher degree may be awarded in cooperation with a partner university). This late changes were gradually developed, the curricula of many courses were deeply changed, other courses were discontinued (like now defunct ISEC's polytechnic degree in chemical engineering which never qualified to achieve the accreditation from the Ordem dos Engenheiros due to lack of the required curricular academic integrity), and totally new innovative courses were introduced by the late 2000s.

Facts and figures

• ISEC has night classes for workers which is a unique characteristic of most polytechnic institutions in Portugal.

1st cycle courses (licenciatura)

• Biological Engineering
• Civil Engineering
• Computer Science
• Electrical and Computer Engineering
• Industrial Engineering
• Mechanical Engineering
• Electromechanical Engineering
• Biomedical Engineering

2nd cycle courses (mestrado)

• Civil Engineering
• Computer Science
• Electrical and Computer Engineering
• Mechanical Engineering

See also

• list of colleges and universities in Portugal
• Higher education in Portugal

External links

• Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Coimbra
• Computer Sciences Department
• Electrical and Computer Engineering Department
• Chemistry Engineering Department
• Civil Engineering Department
• Mechanical Engineering Department
• Student Union