The Group is focused on improvement the processes and infrastructure projects through the development of better models for project management and the procurement of goods, services and works. Particularly, the group has an extensive work developed in the scope of public-private partnerships arrangements with several models and contributions for the literature and the empirical world. In the coming years new solutions will be proposed to achieve higher levels of efficiency and effectiveness of these two activities.

The Group is focused on the study of risk in any natural or built environment requires modelling complex systems, namely urban networks, designed to guarantee the fulfilment of societal needs expressed in terms of information, energy, water, mobility and supplies of a wide spectrum of goods and services. The group will pursue the development of advanced tools to design and to optimize such complex systems, increasing safety and resilience.

The Group is focused on open and comprehensive search for understanding new societal problems. Many of these challenges are directly related to the performance of complex organizations serving communities and cities. The S&M research group promotes the development of: a) models of complex organizations providing public goods or services, such as water supply, waste schooling, logistics and health networks; b) regulatory frameworks and adaptive approaches to propose better pricing and performance evaluation systems, allowing for benchmarking and rankings, particularly in infrastructure and other public services.

The Group is particularly concern with the area of Geomatics and Geographical Information Science, Project Management Support Systems and Information Technologies . In the area of Geomatics and Geographical Information Science, the main research activity concerns are: ground deformation measure with advanced SAR interferometric methods; 3D CIM models and its application; spatial analysis problems, namely in location problems and in territorial management; Geographic databases; Contacts with researchers from external institutions were already developed to enable the collaboration in the abovementioned topics, and activities are related to ongoing projects. In the area of Project Management Support Systems and Information Technologies, the principal research topics were: Building information modelling and systems interoperability; Innovation management; Information management; Business process management; Collaborative systems, e-business and e-procurement.