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Inês Rosa, Researcher in the Composites Research Group (CORE Group) of CERIS, Invited Assistant Professor at Instituto Superior Técnico, and former PhD student at the same institution, was awarded the fib Achievement Award for Young Engineers 2025 – Research Category, granted by the International Federation for Structural Concrete (fib). Her award application was supported by the Portuguese Group for Structural Concrete (GPBE), national member of fib. The award ceremony took place at the fib Symposium 2025, held in Antibes, France, on July 16, 2025, where Inês Rosa was invited to present her research work developed at Instituto Superior Técnico. The award recognized the work carried out in her PhD thesis, titled “Fire behaviour of concrete structures reinforced with GFRP bars”, supervised by Professor João Firmo and co-supervised by Professor João…

We're thrilled to announce that Md Abu Toyob Shahid, CORE Group member developing his PhD thesis at IST, was distinguished with the “Best Student Paper Award” in the 5º Congresso Luso-Brasileiro de Materiais de Construção Sustentáveis (CLBMCS) & Congresso Construção 2024 (Lisbon, November 6-8, 2024), with the paper “Natural weathering of a basalt fibre and partially bio-based unsaturated polyester resin composite”, co-authored by Mateus Hofmann, Mário Garrido, and João Ramôa Correia. Congratulations Shahid! Md Abu Toyob Shahid receiving the Best Student Paper Award.

The European Society for Composite Materials (ESCM) awarded the 2022 ESCM Best PhD Thesis Award to Inês Rosa for her work titled “Fire behaviour of concrete structures reinforced with GFRP bars”, supervised by João Pedro Firmo, João Ramôa Correia, and Mário Arruda. The ceremony took place on July 5th during the final day of the 21st European Conference on Composite Materials (ECCM21), held in Nantes, France. Congratulations Inês! Inês Rosa receiving the 2022 ESCM Best PhD Thesis Award.

CORE Group members David Martins and Inês Rosa and former MSc Student Beatriz Silva were awarded Honourable Mentions by the Portuguese APAET Association for its 40th Anniversary Awards. The ceremony took place on March 22nd in the National Laboratory for Civil Engineering (LNEC), in Lisbon. David Martins and Inês Rosa had their work recognized in the PhD category of the Best Thesis in Experimental Mechanics, while Beatriz Silva received the honourable mention in the MSc Thesis category of the same award: David Martins, “Monotonic, cyclic and seismic behaviour of pultruded structures: from connections to full-scale frames”, supervised by José Gonilha, João Ramôa Correia, and Nuno Silvestre;Inês Cruz Mina Rosa, “Fire behaviour of concrete structures reinforced with GFRP bars”, supervised by João Pedro Firmo, João Ramôa Correia, and Mário Arruda;Beatriz Tavares…

CORE Group member Eloísa Castilho was distinguished by the “EuraSEM – ICEM20 Conference Attendance Award 2023" during the 20th International Conference on Experimental Mechanics (ICEM20), which took place in Porto, on 2-7 July, with the work entitled "Creep in tension and compression at elevated temperature of GFRP laminates produced by vacuum infusion". This award, granted by the European Society for Experimental Mechanics (EuraSEM), recognizes research works that address scientific challenges related to experimental mechanics. We congratulate Eloísa for this achievement.

CORE Group members Inês Rosa, Lourenço Fernandes and João Ramôa Correia were awarded by International Institute for FRP in Construction (IIFC) during the 11th International Conference on FRP Composites in Civil Engineering (CICE2023), which took place in Rio de Janeiro on 23-26 July 2023. Inês Rosa received the award for the IIFC Best PhD Thesis with the work entitled "Fire behaviour of concrete structures reinforced with GFRP bars" (supervised by the Dr. João Firmo, Prof. João Ramôa Correia and Dr. Mário Arruda). Lourenço Almeida Fernandes, received an honourable mention in the award for the IIFC Best PhD Thesis with the work "Fracture behaviour of pultruded GFRP profiles: application to web-crippling phenomena" (supervised by Prof. Nuno Silvestre and Prof. João Ramôa Correia). João Ramôa Correia received the "IIFC President's Award" in…

CORE Group members João Ramôa Correia, Inês Rosa, Lourenço Almeida Fernandes and João Lazzari attended the 11th International Conference on FRP Composites in Civil Engineering, which took place in Rio de Janeiro, on 23-26 July. They presented recent works on (i) the European Technical Specification for Composite Structures (CEN/TS 19101: 2022), (ii) the fire behaviour of GFRP-RC structures, (iii) the fracture and web-crippling behaviour of pultruded GFRP profiles, and (iv) the geometrical imperfections and mechanical behaviour of pultruded GFRP stub columns. Inês Rosa and Lourenço Almeida Fernandes were shortlisted for the IIFC Best PhD Thesis Award. The CICE is the official conference of the International Institute for FRP in Construction. Presentations of CORE Group members at CICE: Inês Rosa (left) and João Lazzari (right)

On July 19, CORE Group member André Castelo defended his thesis with the title “Durability of all‐composite civil engineering structures in service conditions. Development of an inspection and diagnosis system”. The thesis was unanimously approved “With Distinction" by a jury composed of Prof. Eduardo Júlio (IST-UL), Prof. José Dinis Silvestre (IST-UL), Prof. José Manuel Sena Cruz (Universisty of Minho), Dr. Maria Paula Rodrigues (LNEC) and Prof. João Ramôa Correia (IST-UL).Supervised by Prof. João Ramôa Correia (CORE Group), Dr. Susana Cabral Fonseca (LNEC) and Prof. Jorge de Brito (IST-UL), André carried out a comprehensive study on the durability of all-composite structures. In the first part of the thesis, he developed an inspection, diagnosis, and rehabilitation system for composite structures. In the second part, André performed an experimental study to evaluate the…

On June 28, Dr. Andrejs Krauklis (Latvia University) gave a Pizza seminar at Técnico with the title “Modelling Toolbox for Predicting Long-Term Performance of FRPs under Environmental Aging Conditions”. Dr. Krauklis presented his very interesting research activities about the durability of FRP composites, including various scales of analysis, focusing both on the constituents and the fibre-matrix interface. Seminar at Técnico by Dr. Andrejs Krauklis (28/6/2023)

CORE Group members Inês Rosa and João Firmo attended the fib Symposium 2023 “Building for the future: Durable, Sustainable, Resilient", which took place in Istanbul, on 5-7 June, and presented recent works on the elevated temperature and fire behaviour of GFRP-reinforced concrete structures and on the development of bio-based resins for the pultrusion of CFRP reinforcement strips. Fib international symposium series is among the official symposium of "The International Federation for Structural Concrete (fib)" and covers topics related to concrete and innovative materials, structural performance and design, construction methods and management, and outstanding structures. Inês Rosa (left) and João Firmo (right) presenting at fib Symposium 2023.