Civil Engineering Reference
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university town into a globally competitive technology center that successfully educates,
attracts, and retains scientific and entrepreneurial talent from leading technology regions
in the US and worldwide.
Based on many national and international rankings, Austin is judged one of the top US
cities in terms of entrepreneurship, economic growth, and quality of life and [its success]
is often referred to internationally as the ''Austin Model''… Key to Austin's successful
technology-based growth is the fact that the city and The University of Texas at Austin are
able to educate, attract, and retain key US and international talent. This talent has been
crucial to the establishment of globally competitive clusters in semiconductors, software
and IT, and computers and peripherals as well as emerging clusters in biosciences,
nanotechnology, digital media, clean energy and wireless technology.
2 University Technology Enterprise Network UTEN
In the mid-1990 s, Professor Manuel Heitor of the Instituto Superior Técnico (the
engineering school of the Technical University of Lisbon) visited the IC
2
Institute
and launched a program of student and faculty exchange between Austin and
Lisbon. He became Deputy-President of IST in 1993, and was named a Fellow of
the IC
2
Institute. He also joined the editorial board of Technological Forecasting &
Social Change. His talent and energy led to his being appointed Secretary of state
for Science, Technology, and Higher Education for Portugal. In this capacity, he
expanded the Portuguese government's interactions with American universities,
focusing especially on the University of Texas at Austin, Carnegie-Mellon Uni-
versity, and MIT. With UT-Austin's IC
2
Institute, Heitor conceived and structured
the University Technology Enterprise Network (UTEN).
This initiative followed a six-month assessment of the match between the
capabilities of the IC
2
Institute and its partners and Portugal's needs and chal-
lenges in the areas of technology development and commercialization. A 5-year
agreement was signed in 2007. It involved 15 Portuguese universities, technology
parks, and research centers. UTEN's goal is to build a competitive and sustainable
S&T transfer network and infrastructure in Portugal. Objectives include
strengthening Portuguese technology transfer practices, and building academic-
science-business cooperative networks (Pfotenhauer
2010
).
Under UTEN the IC
2
Institute has worked with Portuguese academic, gov-
ernment, and businesses. In 2008, the Institute received visitors from Portuguese
universities and incubators, and from the Ministry of Science, Technology, and
Higher Education. Visits by UTEN partners in Texas included (in Austin) the
Austin Technology Incubator, UT-Austin's Office of Technology Commerciali-
zation, the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce; (in Dallas) UT Dallas' Institute
for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Office of Technology Commercialization,
and Arts & Technology Institute; and (in San Antonio) UT San Antonio's Center
for Innovation, Technology Entrepreneurship, INCELL Corporation, and TEKSA.
Later in 2008, ''a biotechnology and medical technology expert team repre-
senting UTEN Austin visited with entrepreneurs, universities, incubators, research
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