UPTEC — Science and Technology Park of the University of Porto

UPTEC is the Science and Technology Park of the University of Porto, active since 2007 across three centres in Porto (Baixa and two sites in Asprela), created to support business projects that commercialise university research.

UPTEC's objective is to incubate startups and corporate 'Innovation Centre' units, run acceleration programmes, and manage companies' transition out of the park once they graduate.

The park incubates startups and larger companies' innovation units, runs acceleration programmes, and manages the graduation of mature companies. The University of Porto has separately been ranked in the European top 10 for spin-off creation.

Since 2007, UPTEC has supported more than 700 business projects and 98 companies have graduated from the park, creating more than 3,600 direct jobs (86% classified as highly qualified) with participants from 37-40 nationalities. An independent 2024 economic-impact study by Isabel Mota and Armindo Carvalho (Faculty of Economics, University of Porto) found that UPTEC's 223 installed and 84 graduated companies together contributed EUR 866 million to GDP, supported 15,900 jobs (direct, indirect and induced), generated EUR 514 million in wages and EUR 182 million in tax revenue, with GDP, employment, wage and tax growth between 2022 and 2024 running several times faster than corresponding Portuguese national averages.

The independent academic study is a notable evidence strength, comparing UPTEC's portfolio growth against national benchmarks, but its own scope captures the combined footprint of UPTEC's company portfolio in the wider economy rather than isolating UPTEC's specific causal contribution versus what those companies would have achieved otherwise.