INESC TEC puts Portuguese media on the European map

INESC TEC, together with the TICE.PT – Tecnologias da Informação Comunicação e Electrónica (Centre for Information and Communication Technology and Electronics) and ADDICT – Agência para o Desenvolvimento das Indústrias Criativas (Agency for the Development of Creative Industries), created the platform “NEM Portugal,” which mirrors the European NEM (New European Media). The goal with the platform is to give voice to new media and to boost the export of Portuguese cultural products. The platform’s launching event, which took place on 9 September at Casa da Música, in Porto, welcomed about 60 participants, including Jean-Dominique Meunier, chairman of the European NEM, and some of the largest names of new media production and distribution in Portugal: PT IS, RTP, Vodafone, Câmara Municipal do Porto (CMP, Porto municipal council).

An emerging sector

According to the study “A cultura e a criatividade na internacionalização da economia portuguesa” (Culture and creativity in the internationalisation of the Portuguese economy), published by the Portuguese Government earlier this year, new media is an emerging sector in the country that actively contributes to the increase in exports of cultural products made in Portugal. NEM Portugal, a platform launched on 9 September at Casa da Música in Porto, was born in response to a challenge from TICE.PT, of which INESC TEC is member, with the support of ADDICT. According to Artur Pimenta Alves, executive advisor to the Board of INESC TEC and the person leading the initiative at the Institute, “NEM Portugal wants to be a mirror of its European counterpart, which brings a set of research institutions, companies and media closer to the European Commission's program.”

For Vasco Lagarto, CEO of TICE, “this platform was created to leverage the interaction between Portuguese stakeholders and European platforms, and thus align national interests with strategies at European level. The goal is also to encourage the formation of consortia competing for European structural funds.”

The NEM Portugal initiative will promote the preparation of European projects involving companies from the creative and technology fields, and contribute to their internationalisation. “We went from a world where the media worked within borders. Each country had their own media and their scope was within those boundaries. In Portugal we still have various entities working like this. For now, the biggest obstacle to change is the fact that there is no overall strategy. So the creators of new products have many ideas, but they can’t put them into practice,” explains Artur Pimenta Alves. Therefore, NEM Portugal will function as “an aggregating strategy that brings together entities and media, and is not only known in Europe, but can also attract some investment,” he adds.

More than 60 participants in Porto

About 60 participants travelled to Porto to participate in the launch of the NEM Portugal. Besides representatives from several companies and institutions producing and distributing new media in Portugal, such as MOG, Beactive, PT IS, RTP, CCDRN, VODAFONE, NMUSIC, Público and CMP – which presented and discussed Portugal’s positioning strategies in this sector –, the event was also marked by the presence of the chairman of the European NEM, which, according to Artur Pimenta Alves, “looked quite favourably on the Portuguese platform.”

According to Jean-Dominique Meunier, “this is a very positive initiative because what we need in the creative and content industries is to have the largest possible number of representatives, and to group the different sectors at local, regional and national levels.” The chairman of NEM also believes “that the NEM Portugal initiative will bring new visibility to the Portuguese new media because it's an opportunity not only to show the force all Portuguese players involved in the NEM community, but also to promote what they are doing.”

“Right now, NEM has about a thousand partners, and about 3% of them are Portuguese. There is no national strategy, and these entities are there individually,” Artur Pimenta Alves explains, adding that “with NEM Portugal we will be able to double this number by the end of this year.” NEM Portugal will promote the preparation of European projects with national and international partners, and so the initiative will act as an aggregator of multiple entities that want to have a voice at European level. “The most important thing that we took from the presentations at Casa da Música was that everyone appreciated the platform as it will allow them to devise strategies together in order to reach international markets,” Artur Pimenta Alves concludes. The INESC TEC team involved in the initiative also includes Teresa Andrade of the Centre for Telecommunications and Multimedia (CTM) and Cristina Guimarães of the Industry Partnership Service (SAPE) at INESC TEC.

The INESC TEC researchers mentioned in this article are associated with the following partner institutions:  INESC Porto and FEUP.