Carlos Ramos, Principal Coordinator Professor at Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto (ISEP) and Pro-President of Porto’s Polytechnic (P.PORTO) for Cooperation and International Relations, was awarded the Commendation of the National Order of Educational Merit by the Government of Brazil, and the presentation of the Commendation was held at a ceremony presided by Lula da Silva, President of Brazil, which took place on November 14, in Brasilia. 

The Commendation of the National Order of Educational Merit is an official distinction created by the Brazilian Government to recognize personalities, Brazilian or foreign, who have provided relevant or exceptional services to education. The award is proposed by the Ministry of Education and formalized by a decree signed by the President of the Republic of Brazil. 

The proposal for the attribution of this Commendation to Carlos Ramos was made by the Minister of Education of Brazil, Camilo Santana, and took into account all the activities developed by Carlos Ramos in the framework of various projects of ISEP and P.PORTO in Brazil. Collaboration has mainly involved Federal Institutes, but also Public and Private Universities of Brazil. 

There were several initiatives coordinated by ISEP’s professor that took place in Brazil, with an emphasis on the Erasmus+ LAPASSION project, which took place in Brazil, Chile and Uruguay, and implemented student projects in multidisciplinary teams based on Design Thinking. The program was conducted in the five regions of Brazil, and was subsequently continued by the Brazilian Federal Institutes (LAPASSION em Rede) in 23 participating states. 

Carlos Ramos also articulated several trainings, with emphasis on the Post-Graduation in Active Learning Methodologies for Vocational and Technological Education, for training dozens of Professors of the Federal Institute of Amazonas, which took place in Brazil, for ten weeks, and at ISEP, for another two weeks. This project was supported by the Aranouá Program, funded by SAMSUNG. 

The dynamization of Double Degrees with Brazil was another activity promoted by the professor. It should be noted that the President of Brazil, Lula da Silva, on a trip to Portugal in April 2023, received 14 students from the Federal Institute of Maranhão, who were taking Double Degrees at ISEP, in the Master's Degree of Engineering of Artificial Intelligence, Informatics Engineering, and Electrical and Computer Engineering. 

Carlos Ramos also coordinated the project for Internationalization of the Polytechnic Institutes of Portugal, Brazil being the main country of implementation of the project, which involved other countries in Latin America and Africa. 

Founder and first Director of GECAD – Research Group on Intelligent Engineering and Computing for Advanced Innovation and Development, the ISEP Research and Development Unit dedicated to Artificial Intelligence (IA) and classified as Excellent, Carlos Ramos has bet, in conjunction with Brazilian institutions, on the inclusion of AI in the processes of teaching/learning and professional training. 

Currently, the professor is also Director of the Doctoral Program in Artificial Intelligence and Intelligent Systems Engineering of ISEP.