Recursos+: Attracting the next generation of mining engineers in Portugal
Recursos+: Attracting the next generation of mining engineers in Portugal
Recursos+ is helping to tackle Portugal's skills gap by providing tuition support, industry partnerships and hands-on learning opportunities that are attracting more students to the Mining and Energy Resources Bachelor degree.
Location: Portugal
Supported by: EIT RawMaterials Partner - Instituto Superior Técnico
The European Union faces significant challenges in securing the raw materials needed for its energy transition by 2030–2035. Beyond sourcing materials, the transition is also hampered by a significant and growing skills gap.
The Recursos+ programme, run by EIT RawMaterials' partner Instituto Superior Técnico (University of Lisbon), helps address this challenge by attracting new talent into mining and energy resources engineering through financial support and strong industry engagement.
At a time when higher education enrolment in Portugal has declined significantly — with around 10,000 fewer students nationally and many engineering programmes left unfilled — Recursos+ is helping to reverse this trend within its field.
The programme offers a tuition support scheme funded by mining, quarrying and related industries, providing a merit-based award covering the full annual tuition fee of €1,000 per student, alongside internships, site visits and direct industry interaction.
Impact highlights
100% of available places on the Mining and Energy Resources Bachelor degree (20/year) filled for two consecutive years
Supported by +20 companies from the Portuguese mining, quarrying and related industries
Strong industry-academia collaboration through internships, site visits and mentoring
Applications quadrupled over four years, showing growing interest in the degree
Over 50% of students selected the programme as their first choice
