Engineering Geology at Post-graduated Level at the NOVA University of Lisbon

The Portuguese and international construction companies have a long tradition of regularly employing Geological Engineers for their staff to deal with complex soil and rock problems. Good practices everywhere recommend the contribution of an expert in that area for several specific engineering interventions such as mining or tunnelling, dams, highway and railway constructions specially since they are continuously interfering with adverse geological environments. To ensure an adequate guidance and practice in engineering geology and to prepare the students for future professional challenges in those environments, the University NOVA of Lisbon offers a Master and PhD programs in Geological Engineering under the Bologna framework. The candidates of these programs are mainly undergraduates in geology or mining, geological or civil engineering. In this context, several topics have been highlighted for course’s syllabus and for MSc and PhD thesis, such as: These topics demand the use of SOFTWARE for data acquisition, processing and visualization of results. This paper discuss the methodology used at the Nova University to comply with good practices in the domain of engineering geology as well as with innovation and quality assurance/quality control requirements of the engineering industry. In 1986, in consequence of Portugal’s admission in the European Economic Community - EEC, presently European Union - EU, the country was involved over the following two decades in governmental programs of public works, most of them urgent given the Portuguese significant delay in road infrastructures, energy demand and so on. This justifies that, until recently, the main employability areas for graduates in Geological Engineering were those related to • ground modelling; • ground improvement and monitoring; • excavability assessment of open cuts and rehabilitation of slopes; • waste management and soil rehabilitation; • special foundations requirements for renewable energy structures; • risk management. These topics demand the use of software for data acquisition, processing and visualization of results. This paper discuss the methodology used at the Nova University to comply with good practices in the domain of engineering geology as well as with innovation and quality assurance/quality control requirements of the engineering industry.