Chimico-Industrial Engineering was one of the five engineering programmes created with the IST in 1911. Its initial programme was looking to be updated and included subjects such as "Electrochemistry" and "Chemistry-Physics and Radioactivity".

The Chemical Engineering course was then based on Applied Chemistry, and also included a solid education in Maths, Physics and general engineering subjects. The 1919 reform, in addition to replacing one more official assignment with "Practical work in laboratories and laboratory glassware", introduced three autonomous annual courses in Technological Chemistry (equal in number to the courses in Analytical Chemistry) and, while maintaining Biological and Bromatological Analyses (created in 1912), also introduced Industrial Analyses.

This situation would remain without appreciable change until the 1955 reform where, in addition to the Chemical Technology subjects, the Chemical Industry subjects would also appear and Analytical Chemistry would see its curricular weight reduced. The spirit of these changes can be seen in the words of one of the Institute's great masters, A. HERCULANO DE CARVALHO, written in Técnica in 1954.

"First of all, I note that the meaning of the expression "chemical engineering", or at least that which is now adopted in the United States and already accepted in some parts of Europe, is different from what was accepted twenty years ago. Today we can consider it as a specialisation within chemical engineering of the classical type, a specialisation that has developed so much and is so important that, even in countries where it cannot have autonomy by forming a complete course, it will still have to be considered as the backbone of any course for chemical engineers. This means that the classic chemistry subjects are no longer the mainstay of the course. But recognising this is not to say that these subjects have lost their importance, nor that it is admissible to organise such a course devoid of any chemical content. What is necessary is to select among the classic subjects those that continue to be indispensable to the training and professional life of the future engineer. It cannot be said that our school has been oblivious to these developments. Thus, the current subject of Technological Chemistry shows that evolution has been clearly understood. And as far as Analytical Chemistry is concerned, the old theoretical course was reduced from six semesters to three".

Over time, this dichotomy became even more pronounced: on the one hand, the growing need to bring the course closer to a modern and developing concept of chemical engineering in the Anglo-Saxon sense; on the other hand, the weight of the tradition of chemistry subjects, a weight that was accentuated by the expansion of a strong chemistry school within the Institute. The first attempt to resolve this dichotomy came in 1970 with the creation of two branches of the Chemical Engineering programme: the Technology and Industry Branch, which was more technological, and the Chemistry and Processes Branch, which was more focused on chemistry.

This evolution would be further developed first with the curricular restructuring that began in 1983 and then with the restructuring that began in 1996, which we will present below.

To talk about the early years of the Chemical Engineering course at the Instituto Superior Técnico is to talk about PROFESSOR CHARLES LEPIERRE. Born in Paris in 1867, CHARLES LEPIERRE obtained the title of chemical engineer from the "École de Physique et de Chimie Industrielles" in 1887. At the suggestion of Roberto Duarte da Silva, a Cape Verdean Portuguese who was his teacher in Paris, he was hired by the Portuguese government as head of chemistry at the Polytechnic School and as a preparator at the Lisbon Industrial Institute, arriving in Portugal in 1888.

In 1889 he went to Coimbra where, from 1891, he began working in the University's Microbiology laboratory and remained there until August 1911, when he came to Lisbon as a professor at the Instituto Superior Técnico. In 1919 he was appointed professor at the Hydrology Institute, of which he was president from July 1933.

He was appointed director of the Laboratory of the Portuguese Fish Canning Institute in 1935, a post he held even after the Jubilee (November 1937) and until his death (17 December 1945).

Although chemical analysis was his main field, he also carried out work in the areas of inorganic chemistry, bromatology and general biology, bacteriology and hygiene, hydrology, among others. An analysis of his work shows that, in addition to his versatility and ability to assimilate the new physical-chemical techniques that were being introduced, he was also able to respond to specific problems that the external environment posed to the University, which is the basis of the IST ANALYSIS LABORATORY's tradition of providing services. At this stage, we can mention a new method for attacking and dosing tungsten (an area in which the Analysis Laboratory played a major role during World War II), a huge amount of analytical work on mineral-medicinal waters and, for which he is particularly well known, studies on pine nuts (1932), peppers (1934) and, in collaboration with Peres de Carvalho, professor of organic chemistry at the Institute, a study on olive oils (1930) of great relevance to the fish canning industry in Portugal. In this field, he also carried out major studies on the presence of lead in tinned food and its toxicity, on the presence of tin, on the food value of tinned fish, etc. Charles Lepierre's scientific lineage is continued by ANTÓNIO HERCULANO DE CARVALHO. His career as a lecturer at the Institute spanned from 1922 until 1969, when he retired. He was director of IST and Rector of UTL. Of his activities as a scientist outside the school, he was a member of the Higher Council for Industry, a member of the Centre for Nuclear Energy Studies, a member of the board of the Institute of High Culture, president of the Portuguese Institute of Fuels, a member of the Higher Council for Public Instruction and Head of the Research Laboratory at the Teaching Hospital.

In Herculano de Carvalho's work, essentially in analytical chemistry, we should highlight his interest in the associated aspects of the inorganic chemistry of solutions with its physical chemistry component, which eventually led to the Institute's schools of inorganic and analytical chemistry and physical chemistry, through FRAÚSTO DA SILVA (full professor of analytical chemistry) and JORGE CALADO (full professor of physical chemistry). It's not possible to trace a family tree in Organic Chemistry, as there are several solutions of continuity in its history. PERES DE CARVALHO, to whom we have already referred, was dismissed for political reasons without having had time to go to school. PIERRE LAURENT, a Frenchman, who replaced him, although an active chemist who motivated several young people to research and who sought contact with the outside world, especially in the field of essential oils, was dismissed in 1961 without leaving any continuators. A new era began in 1962 with BERNARDO J. HEROLD, who held the Chair of Organic Chemistry.

Until 1948, JOÃO LOPES RAIMUNDO, a teacher with personal interests in the sulphuric acid and glass industries, was in charge of the technological subjects. He wanted his students to have an industrial perspective and his motto was that the unit to be used should be the tonne and not the milligramme. When he stepped down in 1948 (for political reasons followed by ill health), the young assistant professor of maths and rational mechanics, LUIZ DE ALMEIDA ALVES, was appointed head of the technological subjects, first as regent and, from 1950, as full professor. He was in charge of Technological Chemistry and Chemical Industries I and II. Almeida Alves modernised these subjects and produced texts (totally innovative in Portugal at the time) for the students to use, dedicating the Technological Chemistry subject to the study of unit operations and analysing the main Portuguese chemical industries in the Chemical Industries subjects, quantifying them based on the unit operations used.

The 1955 reform, which introduced the teaching of Instrumentation and Control, the subject of Industrial Installation and Services and gave more time per week to Chemical Engineering Practicals, helped to reinforce the technological component of the course, a situation that the 1970 reform enshrined by dividing the course into two branches, as we mentioned earlier.

The work begun by Almeida Alves (the figurehead of Chemical Technology at IST until his retirement in 1990) was later developed by his collaborators who consolidated his theoretical foundations through their doctorates abroad: JOAQUIM BARBOSA ROMERO (Almeida Alves' first assistant and who continued his work at the University of Lourenço Marques, Mozambique, and later at the University of Minho), TAVARES DA SILVA and FARINHA PORTELA (who, by diversifying, introduced catalysis studies at IST). Also making a significant contribution to the teaching of Chemical Technology at IST were two engineers recruited from the CUF Research Laboratory (the largest Portuguese chemical complex at the time): BARBOSA DE SOUSA AND AQUILES GOMES.

The institutionalisation of the departmental structure at IST in 1980 made it possible to give coherence and unity to an entity that until then had been more diffuse and disconnected, such as the "chemical engineering course". The Chemical Engineering Department was subdivided into sections that corresponded, with some minor rearrangements, to the units that had previously been called departments, and which corresponded roughly to scientific areas of teaching and, to a certain extent, research. The sections were as follows: Chemistry-Physics and Thermodynamics, Organic Chemistry, Inorganic Chemistry, Analytical Chemistry, Applied Transfer Phenomena, Chemical Design and Reaction Engineering, Chemical Engineering Processes.

The emerging area of Biotechnology, introduced at DEQ by PROFESSOR JÚLIO MAGGIOLLY NOVAIS, did not yet have the critical status needed to legally become a department but was already functioning as such in practice. The implementation of the departmental structure was, in part, one of the driving forces behind the curriculum review that began in 1983 during the tenure of the first President of the DEQ (1980 to 1984), Professor Luís de Almeida Alves. This reform created three branches of the Chemical Engineering degree, which students could opt for after the first two years, which were common. The three branches admitted different numbers of students, which were determined each year by job market forecasts and the capacity in laboratory space and teaching staff in the various sections of the Department. The three branches were as follows:

• Processes and Industry branch, which is an evolution of the Technology and Industry branch from the 1970 restructuring, in order to bring it closer to the concept of Chemical Engineering in Anglo-Saxon countries.

• Applied Chemistry branch, an evolution of the previous Chemistry and Processes branch, strengthening a solid basic training in the various fields of Chemistry.

• Biotechnology branch, the "new" branch, which demonstrates the growing importance of this scientific/technological area in the DEQ, as was the case internationally.

It's interesting that the appearance of the Chemical Engineering - Biotechnology Degree follows a tradition of the existence of subjects in the area of Biological Sciences, namely Biological and Bromatological Analyses introduced in 1912 by Charles Lepierre.

Although this model worked successfully for several years, the DEQ's internal evolution, as well as reasons external to it, meant that about 10 years after its implementation a reflection began on the degree from the perspective of the Department's strategic development. On the one hand, the teachers most closely associated with Chemical Engineering, whose academic qualifications had been increasing through research and doctoral studies, wanted to give more visibility to a degree in Chemical Engineering that was even more characterised by what is simplistically known as the Anglo-Saxon model. On the other hand, the number of lecturers who were very active in the field of Biotechnology was also increasing and it was obvious that there was a desire to give more visibility to what was then the branch, focusing on the growing importance of the biological sciences and their technological applications, in addition to their appeal to students applying to university higher education.

Finally, on the side of the more chemistry-oriented teachers, an area of great tradition and quality in the Department, there was also a desire for a course much more centred on Chemistry. From an exogenous point of view, there are two important aspects that should be mentioned: the move by various IST departments to create new degrees and the end of the taboo of IST being solely and exclusively an engineering school, a taboo that had been broken with the creation of the degree in Applied Maths and Computers.

After much reflection and discussion, a very ambitious project was drawn up, led by ALBERTO ROMÃO DIAS, President of the DEQ for several terms and an institutional benchmark, which was based on the Department's three core areas of expertise: Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Biology (molecular and cellular). Each of these three areas corresponded to a degree programme. Due to obvious intersections between these three areas, three other degrees would emerge: Biological Engineering (Chemical and Biological Engineering), Biochemistry (Chemistry and Biology) and Industrial Chemistry (Chemistry and Chemical Engineering).

A certain pragmatism, imposed by the Coordinating Committee of the IST Scientific Council, led to the implementation of three degrees in this restructuring:

• Degree in Chemical Engineering, heir to the Processes and Industry Branch.

• Chemistry degree, heir to the Applied Chemistry branch and planned to work with two profiles: Chemistry and Biochemistry.

Although this is a Chemistry degree, the Maths subjects are the same as those for Engineering degrees in order to maintain the "IST brand image".

• A degree in Biological Engineering, the heir to the Biotechnology branch, for which a considerable effort has been made to recruit new teaching staff of the highest calibre.

With the appearance of these three degrees, it was possible to significantly increase the DEQ's overall numerus clausus.

When they were launched, all three degrees were in great demand. Their future, apart from any internal corrections deemed appropriate, will be conditioned by the general drop in the number of applicants to higher education for well-known demographic reasons, by current fads and by the universal flight of students from more technological areas. The image that the Department is able to convey to the outside world about its degrees is very important.