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Universities, as providers of knowledge and technology, have a key role in society based on knowledge. The purpose of this paper is to identify and describe the technological innovation centers (TICs) of the federal universities of Minas Gerais, Brazil, verifying if federal institutions of higher education in the state are meeting the attributions outlined in the Innovation Act.

In order to achieve the proposed objective, each one of the public and federal universities in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, was outlined as analysis units. The data sources used for this study are intrinsically secondary and were collected from the websites and TICs of each university.

As a result, it was found that all universities have TICs, and are inserted into the State Intellectual Property Network. Those aspects show that the universities have been searching for structure themselves by the new entrepreneurial mission of today’s educational institutions.

As noted in the literature, more research is needed to examine the efficiency and professionalism of TICs in the entrepreneurial activity of universities because the institutionalization of TICs is still recent and many TICs are currently in an improvement phase of their activities.

From the perspective of housing affordability, Portugal is an interesting case study, considering that Portugal ranks 5th in terms of price-to-income ratio and has experienced, since 2015, a significant increase in real estate prices.

The provision of housing is a critical social development factor. With the growing worldwide urbanization and the demand pressure over real estate in many cities, the problem of affordability has gained increase attention by policy makers. Housing affordability is hardly a new topic from a literature perspective, but the recent post-pandemic worldwide inflation growth has re-centered affordability as key topic in the housing agenda. This paper provides a comprehensive overview on past literature and a detailed analysis on the Portuguese market at the municipal level, by analyzing the changes in housing affordability in recent years.

Despite this growth, overall, affordability has improved. The study also shows the importance of municipal-level analysis, given the significant geographical differences. The authors' study confirms that many municipalities, outside metropolitan areas, exhibit low levels of affordability. Nevertheless, markets with higher average real estate values tend to exhibit even lower affordability, outpacing the higher levels of income.

Previous studies have focused on affordability issues on a national or highly aggregated level or focusing only on the two largest metropolitan areas in the country. This paper provides a deeper understanding on the inequalities of housing affordability between Portuguese municipalities.

This paper aims to investigate the importance of networking for Italian and French small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Brazil. Business opportunities in Brazil have attracted a significant amount of interest in recent years. The country is moving towards market orientation, and it has recently experienced higher growth rates. Furthermore, upcoming events, such as the FIFA World Cup in 2014 and the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, are attracting a significant amount of attention given the emergence of potential business opportunities in several sectors. Nevertheless, European companies wishing to enter the Brazilian market should address several constraints, including high barriers to entry, an extensive bureaucracy and a culture quite different from those in Europe. In this context, networking seems to be vital for success.

The data were gathered through a survey undertaken between June and August 2012. After the questionnaire was prepared, each company either received and responded to the questionnaire by e-mail or participated in a telephone interview. The questionnaire included multiple choice questions, most of which used a 5-point Likert scale. Some open-ended questions were included to collect insights from respondents. Representatives of 21 Italian and 24 French SMEs agreed to participate in the survey. Respondents were typically company presidents, chief executive officers or export department managers with experience in the Brazilian market.

The results highlight the importance of social networks for the SMEs interviewed. The establishment of social networks is pivotal for successful business activities in Brazil, as they can help entrants decipher and understand how society and business work. In Brazil, social networks are built through a path-dependent process that requires time, patience and perseverance, as well as an ability to overcome liabilities of sameness. In this regard, a networking process that encompasses specific activities linked to the peculiarities of Brazil is essential, even if it seems to be a second-best solution, as in the case of the QWERTY keyboard. This process, which is the main characteristic of social networking in Brazil, necessitates not only the use of the Internet and information and communications technologies but also face-to-face contacts for building reputation, legitimacy and trust.

This paper extends the extant literature by investigating the importance of networking for Italian and French SMEs in Brazil. Brazil serves as an interesting and useful case that can deepen our knowledge about this aspect of international business. As highlighted by Jack et al. (2008) and Ruzzier et al. (2006), the knowledge and understanding of the networking process still suffers from several limitations despite the increased attention paid to this phenomenon.

The purpose of this paper is to present a prospective study of sustainable mobility in the framework of a supporting energy management systems (EMS). Technological advances are still required, namely electric vehicles (EV) endowed with improved EMS in order to increase their performance by making the most of available energy storage technologies. As EVs may be seen as a special domestic load, EMS are proposed based on demand-sensitive pricing strategies such as the Energy Box discussed in this paper.

The study presents an overview of electric mobility and an urban EV project, with special focus on the utilization of its energy sources and their relation with the energy demand of a typical urban driving cycle. Results based on the ECE 15 standard driving cycle for different free market electricity tariffs are presented.

The analysis based on present Portuguese power and energy tariffs reveals that it is highly questionable whether the resulting profit will be enough to justify the potential inconveniences to the vehicle user, as well as those resulting from the increased use of batteries.

The conclusions indicate that more studies on the trade-offs between grid to vehicle and vehicle to grid schemes and electricity pricing mechanisms are needed in order to understand how the utilization of EVs can become more attractive in the end-users’ and utilities’ perspectives.

The paper proposes an approach for future electricity tariff behavior that could be applied to EVs in order to understand whether or not their grid integration in charge and discharge situations would be beneficial for end-users and utilities, in the framework of smart energy management technologies.