The Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto (ISEP) is the first school of the Polytechnic of Porto (P.PORTO) to offer a doctoral program approved by the Portuguese Agency for Assessment and Accreditation of Higher Education (A3ES).

Several other institutions have recently submitted proposals of 3rd-cycle degrees to A3ES, following the approval of Portuguese Law No. 16/2023 on April 10, which allows polytechnic institutes to deliver doctoral programs in areas where they have Research Units evaluated as "Very Good" or "Excellent" by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT).

The PhD in Artificial Intelligence and Intelligent Systems Engineering is one of the four doctoral programs proposed by ISEP and is part of a group of six that P.PORTO submitted for approval to A3ES. The ISEP’s new doctoral program aims to provide advanced scientific training in the fundamentals of Artificial Intelligence and to enable the Design and Development of Intelligent Systems that can solve complex problems in Companies and other Organizations, contributing to the development of Society, always considering ethical and social aspects.

This unique doctoral program, in national terms, will start in September 2024, and is part of the first group of doctoral programs to be offered by polytechnic institutes in Portugal.