General description of the School

The Escola Superior Agrária of Instituto Politécnico de Bragança develops its activities in three main areas linked together: the teaching, research, experimentation and technological development and the support to the community. This model of operation and action, allows for constant training of staff in a continuous way, updated through research carried out either during the academic achievement of its faculty, or in the development of different projects with external financing made in close connection with the community. This acquired and accumulated knowledge is constantly transmitted to the community through different ways, from training to technical and scientific support to public entities.
To the level of education, ESA develops its activity within the Agricultural Sciences, whose fields of knowledge and education provided include the following areas: agriculture, rural engineering, food engineering, biotechnology, environment and natural resources management, among others. It is in these areas of knowledge that are based the courses currently offered: Agricultural Engineering, Food Engineering, Zootechnic Engineering, Forest Engineering, Biotechnological Engineering, Environmental Engineering; Phytochemistry and Phytopharmacology and Veterinary Technology. These are academic training that, in their majority, are taught in the ESA for more than ten years in an interconnected and complementary way among different courses, giving the school a unique identity on training in Agricultural Sciences as a result of the interconnection of this area with knowledge of the areas of environment, food technology and biotechnology among others.
Apart from academic education leading to obtaining a BA degree the ESA has in place six Masters: Agroecology, Quality and Food Safety, Animal Technology, Management of Forest Resources, Biotechnological Productions and Environmental Technology.

In the component of research, experimentation and technological development, the guidelines followed and practiced in the ESA, are mostly related with the areas of training, focused in the resolution of subjects related with the surrounding environment of the institution and particularly directed to the agriculture of mountain areas and the Mediterranean fruit growing in its multiple uses and aspects. In order to solve the needs in research and technological development in these ecological zones the ESA created the Mountain Research Center. It is a center of multidisciplinary research justified by the biogeographical position, by the ancient human use and by the Mediterranean Sea and the Portuguese mountain nature, focused on the following areas: Ecosystem and biodiversity conservation; recovery of agroecosystems, territorial planning and social systems. In the last six years, ESA had 74 ongoing research projects with external funding. Among the funding schemes the followings are highlighted: Agro, POCTI, POCI, INTERREG III A and III B - Southwest Europe, INCO-Med, IDEA, and protocols concluded with the Caixa de Crédito Agrícola Mútuo of Bragança and the INGA.
In terms of connection to the community, ESA maintains protocols of cooperation with different institutions in technical support/studies, laboratory support, external services, research and experimentation agreements and collaboration with other institutions of education and research, either in the teaching of some curricular units or in training of post-graduation projects.

The students body is of 1 050 students and the teachers body consists of 83 Professors, of which 56 have the PhD, 24 are preparing their PhD and 6 are awaiting for the dissertation defence.

At the level of international educational cooperation are to highlight the mobility of students and teachers within the Socrates / Erasmus Program, the Intensive Program and protocols with Brazilian Federal Universities, with which there has been regular exchanges of students and teachers. ESA also collaborates with the Escola Agrária do Kwanza Sul (Angola) and with the Instituto Politécnico of São Tomé e Príncipe.

Name and address

Escola Superior Agrária do Instituto Politécnico de Bragança
Campus de Santa Apolónia
5300-253 Bragança

Telefone: (+351) 273 303 200 ou (+351) 273 331 570
Telefax: (+351) 273 325 405
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Academic authorities

Director
Pedro Miguel Lopes Bastos

Sub-directors
Margarida Maria Pereira Arrobas Rodrigues
Manuel Joaquim Sabenca Feliciano

ECTS school co-ordinators

Sandra Sofia Quinteiro Rodrigues (

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Vitor Manuel Ramalheira Martins (

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