The Centre For Research in Geospace Science (CICGE)

In 1975 researchers from the Astronomical Observatory from the Porto University decided to start a Centre of Astronomy. Linked to the course on Survey Engineering, it inherited a series of scientific instruments dedicated to measuring local time and astrometry. In 1979 through a joint collaboration with France, António Magalhães, a researcher from this unit, built the first Portuguese radio telescope.

With the advancement of space exploration the centre started to include researchers from areas linked to Earth Observation, and in 1998 the unit name was changed to Centre for Research in Geo-Space Sciences in order to reflect the broadening of its scope. Its main mission is to actively participate in research applied to space sciences and their application to the Earth environment. Active areas of research at CICGE include Heliophysics, Remote Sensing, Geographic Information Systems, and Spatial Biology.