Amaral's paper considered Highly Commended by The University of Cambridge

Engineering and Public Policy Doctoral Student Afonso Amaral's recent piece, National core competencies and dynamic capabilities in times of crisis - Regulation of ventilators and new market entrants in Portugal versus Spain, has been considered Highly Commended by the 2021 Babbage Industrial Innovation Policy Awards Opens in new window by the Cambridge Industrial Innovation Policy department at the University of Cambridge.

Amaral, who worked alongside co-authors Granger Morgan, Joana Mendonça Opens in new window, and Erica Fuchs on the piece, represented Carnegie Mellon University during the competition, which was the only US-based university recognized during the event.

The Babbage Policy Forum is a global multidisciplinary network of experts and addresses the challenges facing policymakers in science, technology, innovation and manufacturing. The Babbage Industrial Innovation Policy Awards seek to elicit new, multi-disciplinary insights, analysis or synthesis to enhance the development of effective policies towards industrial innovation.

Amaral is a candidate for both the Ph.D. programs in Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University and at Instituto Superior Técnico of the Universidade de Lisboa (IST-UL) Opens in new window, as well as a researcher at IN+ Center for Innovation, Technology and Policy Research Opens in new window. Afonso holds an integrated master's degree in Mechanical Engineering from IST and was a researcher in the cooperative research program “cátedra 4.0” between IST and The Navigator Company. He has specialized in maturity models and implementation of critical technologies in Small and Medium Enterprises, their integration in Industry 4.0, and how these companies can shape themselves to reap the full benefits of their inherent digital transformation.