The Centre for Informatics and Systems of the University of Coimbra (CISUC) is a large Portuguese research centre in the fields of Informatics and Communications, which was created in 1991 under the Program Science. CISUC aims at carrying out original R&D at a pre-competitive level, training highly qualified young researchers, co-operating in national and international projects and programs, and promoting the dissemination of results by means of contracts with different companies. All administrative support of the centre and the majority of the research laboratories are located in the Department of Informatics Engineering building at the new campus of the Faculty of Sciences and Technology. CISUC is composed of about 200 researchers, including full-time university professors and graduate and post-graduate students. This young, dynamic and highly qualified team of researchers is the guarantee of success of the centre´s mission. Covering a substantial segment of Computer Science and Engineering research topics, CISUC is organized into 6 research groups (Cognitive and Media Systems, Adaptive Computation, Software and Systems Engineering, Communications and Telematics, Information Systems and Evolutionary and Complex Systems),and has registered, over the last years, an increasing activity on multidisciplinary and emergent research subjects.