 The Industrial Superior Studies were cut in 1918 by the minister Azevedo Neves reforms, as the country suffered many social and political convulsions, and the creation in 1911 of the new universities in Lisbon and Porto covered the highest educational needs of the country at the time.Between 1918 and 1974 (until the approval of decree Decreto-Lei 830/74 of 31 December 1974), the Industrial and Commercial Institutes in Porto and Lisbon, plus new ones created in Coimbra (1965) and Aveiro, provided vocational and technical education, instead of higher education.The idea of creating a polytechnic sector in Portugal can be traced back to the OECD's
Mediterranean Regional Project, MRP, of 1959.