The Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Coimbra (ISEC) is a higher education polytechnic institution of engineering, based in Coimbra, Portugal. It belongs to the Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra, although with a great level of administrative, financial, and pedagogic autonomy. History Its origins backs to the creation of the Industrial Institute of Coimbra (Instituto Industrial de Coimbra) created in September 1965 as a non-higher education institute of vocational education. With the approval of decree "Decreto-Lei 830/74", of 31 December 1974, the Industrial Institute of Coimbra remodeled to what it is now known as Coimbra Institute of Engineering, (ISEC) "Instituto Superior de Engenharia Coimbra". According to that decree all superior institutes of engineering were of university level, they were allowed to award bachelors, masters and doctorates. However, at the time ISEC only conferred bachelors in Civil Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Chemistry Engineering, with 8 semesters (4 years). Its status was changed from university when it was integrated into the polytechnic subsector in 1988 through the decree "Decreto-Lei nº389/88", of 25 of October", and incorporated into the newly created Polytechnical Institute of Coimbra. It remodeled all courses to a 6 semesters (3 years) bacharelato degrees in several technical engineering specializations, until the late 1990s. In 1989 new courses were created, Computer Sciences Engineering and in 1991 Electromechanical Engineering was introduced. At this time new legal decrees were adopted by Portuguese State (Administrative Rule 413A/98 of 17 July 1998), and it started to award 3 + 2 licenciaturas bietápicas (bacharelato plus one or two extra years, conferring the licenciatura degree - a degree that had been awarded exclusively by the universities). In the mid-2000s ISEC adopted new more selective admission rules which were imposed to every Portuguese higher education institution by the State. In 2006 Biological Engineering was introduced already according to Bologna Process, awarding the degree of "licenciatura" bachelors (3 years). After 2006, with the approval of new legislation and the Bologna Process, ISEC, like any other polytechnic or university institution of Portugal, is legally able to provide a first 3-year study cycle, known as licenciatura plus a second 2-year cycle which confer the master's degree (in some cases this higher degree may be awarded in cooperation with a partner university) . This late changes were gradually developed, the curricula of many courses were deeply changed, other courses were discontinued (like now defunct ISEC's polytechnic degree in chemical engineering). In 2007 Biomedical