José Mariano Rebelo Pires Gago, ComSE (16 May, 1948 – 17 April, 2015), commonly referred to as Mariano Gago, was a Portuguese physicist and politician, mostly known for his tenures as Minister for Science and Higher Education. He held government offices for a total of 13 years, more than any other person since 1976. He graduated as an electrical engineer by the

University of Lisbon The University of Lisbon (ULisboa; pt, Universidade de Lisboa, ) is a public research university in Lisbon, and the largest university in Portugal. It was founded in 2013, from the merger of two previous public universities located in Lisbon, th ...

Instituto Superior Técnico Instituto Superior Técnico MHSE • MHIP (IST, also known colloquially as Técnico, and stylized TÉCNICO LISBOA) is a public school of engineering and technology, part of University of Lisbon. It was founded as an autonomous school in 1911 ...

Lisbon Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Grande Lisboa, Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administr ...

, and did advanced research work in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

at the

École Polytechnique École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

as a high-energy

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...

. Professor of Physics at Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon, he worked at

CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in a northwestern suburb of Gene ...

(European Organization for Nuclear Research) in

Geneva Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaki ...

for several years. He was a member of the CERN Council (1985–1990), the EC Joint Research Centre Board of Governors (1986–1989), President of the Portuguese National Board for Science and Technology (1986–1989), and was chair of the European

EUREKA Eureka (often abbreviated as E!, or Σ!) is an intergovernmental organisation for research and development funding and coordination. Eureka is an open platform for international cooperation in innovation. Organisations and companies applying th ...

initiative from July 1997 to June 1998. Prof. Gago was the Minister for Science and Technology of Portugal since 1995, and represented Portugal at the Council of Ministers for Research and Development of the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...

. He was also responsible for the coordination of the Portuguese policy on Information Society, and for the promotion of science education and scientific culture. José Mariano Gago signing ESO treaty

Throughout his career, Prof. Gago emphasised the link between teaching and research, and addressed issues such as whether universities should specialise more in teaching or in research and whether there were possible divergences between teaching and research priorities, although never managing to reach acceptable educational levels within some Portuguese higher education institutions. Prof. Gago was the founder of the ''Ciência Viva'' programme (since 1996), which on behalf of the Ministry of Science and Technology, aims to promote scientific and technological culture among the Portuguese population. "My generation's legacy will be that research and technology made great progress in being more accessible and understandable to the public. The present development of technical advancement would have been unthinkable if we were unable to rely on the basic technical knowledge of the average citizen," stated Prof. Gago. He also fostered research that is increasingly carried out in a framework of international cooperation, as a chance for Portugal to develop new products and provide new types of knowledge-intensive services. During his tenure as Minister for Science, Technology and Higher Education of the '' XVII Governo Constitucional'', Mariano Gago's Ministry was responsible for the compulsory closing of problematic and unreliable private higher education institutions (

Independente University Independente University (in Portuguese ''Universidade Independente'' or UnI for short) was a private university, headquartered in Lisbon, Portugal, founded in 1993 by Luís Arouca, Rui Verde and Amadeu Lima Carvalho; it was owned by SIDES (''Socie ...

and

Moderna University Moderna University (''Universidade Moderna'') was a Portuguese private university headquartered in Lisbon, with departments in Setúbal, Porto and Beja. The institution was authorized by the Portuguese Ministry of Education to provide university h ...

Career as minister in the Government of Portugal

*From 2005-03-12 to 2011-06-21: Minister for Science, Technology and Higher Education of Portugal of the ''XVII Governo Constitucional'' (Prime Minister

José Sócrates José Sócrates Carvalho Pinto de Sousa, GCIH (born 6 September 1957), commonly known as José Sócrates (), is a Portuguese politician who was the prime minister of Portugal from 12 March 2005 to 21 June 2011. For the second half of 2007, he ...

) *From 1999-10-25 to 2002-04-06: Minister for Science and Technology of Portugal of the ''XIV Governo Constitucional'' (Prime Minister

António Guterres António Manuel de Oliveira Guterres ( , ; born 30 April 1949) is a Portuguese politician and diplomat. Since 2017, he has served as secretary-general of the United Nations, the ninth person to hold this title. A member of the Portuguese Socia ...

) *From 1995-10-28 to 1999-10-25: Minister for Science and Technology of Portugal of the ''XIII Governo Constitucional'' (Prime Minister

)

External links

Biography on Portugal.gov.ptScientific publications of Mariano Gag
on

INSPIRE-HEP INSPIRE-HEP is an open access digital library for the field of high energy physics (HEP). It is the successor of the Stanford Physics Information Retrieval System (SPIRES) database, the main literature database for high energy physics since the 1970 ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gago, Mariano 1948 births 2015 deaths People associated with CERN Socialist Party (Portugal) politicians Education ministers of Portugal Instituto Superior Técnico alumni Members of Academia Europaea Portuguese physicists