Católica Porto Business School dominated the podium of the Porto Economy Award, an initiative promoted by Porto City Council, which annually recognises three academic dissertations on topics relevant to the city's economy. The award ceremony occurred yesterday, 3 April, at Porto City Hall, with the Mayor of Porto, Rui Moreira, personally presenting the awards.
Francisco Sousa Matos, a Master’s in Business Economics student at Católica Porto Business School, took the top prize with his thesis "Dynamic Analysis of Housing Market Segmentation in the Municipality of Porto". Católica Porto Business School professor Pedro Silva supervised his research.
For Francisco, "Receiving the Porto Economy Award is a recognition of my work and effort, showing that research like this can go beyond academia and contribute meaningfully to the economic reality."
"This study aimed to identify the existence of housing submarkets in the municipality of Porto. Defining these submarkets provides valuable insights for homeowners, local authorities, lenders, investors, and property developers," he added.
Second place was awarded to Isabel Marramaque Ribeiro (Master’s in Marketing), while third place went to Tiago Gesta Pedrosa (Master’s in Management, specialising in Service Management).
Joana César Machado and Carla Martins supervised Isabel's thesis, "A content analysis of Porto's online perceived and projected city image, " exploring how Porto’s image is shaped online.
For Isabel, "receiving this award is truly rewarding. The thesis process was challenging, but I believe it resulted in a comprehensive and insightful study on how Porto's city image is built online. The guidance of Professors Joana and Carla, to whom I am deeply grateful, was essential to achieving this result."
Tiago Gesta Pedrosa, under the supervision of Jorge Julião, developed his dissertation based on his internship report, "Enhancing Urban Attractiveness for Foreign Direct Investment".
Reflecting on the achievement, Tiago shared: "I am incredibly proud to be part of this podium and of this school that has given me so much. (...) Here's to the next challenges!"
The Porto Economy Award aims to encourage research with real-world applications to the local economy. It allows students, researchers, and professionals to share their perspectives on the region’s economic landscape.
Católica Porto Business School has three of its Master’s programmes ranked among the best in the world in the QS Business Master’s Rankings.
