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Research activity in civil engineering in Portuguese universities started in FEUP and in IST, where the laboratory that gave rise to LNEC was created in 1946. After this empowerment, the department's activity focused on education for the next twenty years. The first three PhDs in civil engineering at IST were awarded in the 1960s, but it was only ten years later that a research investment policy was adopted, ensuring training and settling conditions for a group of lecturers and researchers.
In 2006, the creation of the advanced training diplomas (DFA) and of the advanced studies diplomas (DEA), in the context of the Bologna Process, culminates a restructuring stage of postgraduate education at IST, which started in 2000 with the regulation of PhD courses. The previously adopted practice of basing a PhD program exclusively on a research project is allowed, but the idea of complementing this specialized training with an academic component is encouraged with the purpose of providing the postgraduate student with a faster and more efficient way of obtaining the appropriate advanced training, as well as opening that training to other fields that may interest him.
An important tool of the research reinvestment policy was the introduction of postgraduate training, with the creation in the 1980s of master courses with a strong scientific content. The second most important development in the same period was the creation of the centres which are still behind the department's advanced training and research and development activities. They have obtained the best classifications in their fields of activity in the international assessment of the Portuguese research units that are held every three years (Research Centres).
The department participated in the creation of the first intercollege master course in Portugal, the Regional and Urban Planning master course, created in September 1982, and promoted the first master courses in Structural Engineering (1980), Operational Research and Systems Engineering (1981) and Hydraulics and Water Resources (1982/83). Initially the master courses supported the training of young lecturers and researchers of IST and other academic and research institutions, and were progressively redirected to provide advanced technical qualification. These initiatives were so successful that the department became involved in eight other master courses: Construction (1987), Transportation (1987), Geographical Information Systems (1995), Logistics (1999), Urban Studies and Territorial Management (1991), Geotechnics for Civil Engineering (2002), Rehabilitation and Conservation of the Built Heritage (2004) and Steel and Composite Construction (2005).
It is through five of these courses that the department presently awards the advanced training diplomas (DFA): Construction, Structural Engineering, Geotechnics for Civil Engineering, Rehabilitation and Conservation of the Built Heritage, Hydraulics and Water Resources, Water and Waste Management and Technologies, Transportation, Geographical Information Systems and Logistics. They also support the PhD courses, the award of advanced studies diplomas (DEA), complementing training with the strengthening of the scientific content of the courses offered.
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