The twenty students who enter the Polymer Engineering degree at the University of Minho (UMinho) in September will have companies in the sector financing the entire tuition fee, it was announced this Friday.

In a statement, UMinho adds that those students will also have a tutor at the company and, every summer, internships in the industry with paid expenses.

The monthly fee is financed for all 1st year students and, from the 2nd year onwards, the benefits remain, as long as the students pass all subjects and have an average above 13.

According to UMinho, this initiative aims to address the clear lack of professionals in the plastics and molds sector, an area in which Portugal leads the world, with its 1,150 companies, 43 thousand workers and eight billion euros in revenue, around 4% of National GDP.

“In society, the wrong idea has been given that plastic materials are harmful, that they will end and that this sector has no future, but the reality is substantially different, as employability is 100%, our industry is an international reference and this This area is crucial in mobility, IT, medicine, construction and many other fields”, points out the director of the Department of Polymer Engineering at UMinho.

João Miguel Nóbrega adds that “new minds” are needed to bring more innovation to the sector, “developing and processing new polymers, biopolymers and biodegradable polymers to respond to societal challenges, in accordance with the United Nations 2030 Agenda”.

The professor emphasizes that the industry has been lacking qualified young people for years, as course vacancies are not filled and requests for qualified labor have grown “substantially”.

According to UFMG, more than 20 companies have already joined the initiative, which will appoint a tutor to monitor the students' training throughout the course and will receive them in internships during the summer holidays.

These internships will last two to four weeks and allow you to deepen the relationship between students and associated companies.

“At the end of the course, we will have students with more capacity for evolution and motivation, which will make them better professionals. In practice, the market prefers to have someone they know, help train and then hire, reducing risk and increasing efficiency, as an alternative to hiring professionals they don't know”, said João Miguel Nóbrega.

The School of Engineering at the University of Minho has been training professionals in Polymer Engineering since 1978, having in the country the only undergraduate and master's degrees and the first doctorate in the area.