Vitruvian Academic Research Program
A Vitruvian Shield Portugal initiative supporting non-profit clinical and translational research.
Modern clinical research infrastructure, accessible to academic investigators
Through the Vitruvian Academic Research Program, Vitruvian Shield Portugal makes its full research platform available, at no cost, to non-profit research entities across Portugal. The objective is to accelerate the country's contribution to digital clinical evidence, remote patient monitoring science, and decentralized trial methodology, and to make industry-grade tooling accessible to investigators who would otherwise have no path to it.
What the Program includes
A twelve-month, non-transferable, royalty-free license covering the integrated research platform.
Study Design Environment
Integrated protocol authoring and study build environment with versioning and audit trail.
Electronic Data Capture (EDC)
Form builder, edit checks, queries, and source-data verification workflows.
Electronic Consent (eConsent)
Multimedia digital consent with comprehension verification and remote signing.
ePRO
Patient-reported outcomes via secure web and mobile, scheduled and ad-hoc.
Clinical Trial Management (CTMS)
Site, subject, monitoring, and milestone management across the study lifecycle.
100 GB compressed storage per study
Annual allocation per accepted study. Additional capacity available at the academic rate of EUR 500 per 50 GB per year.
Wearables and connected devices
Wearable devices, continuous glucose monitors, and other connected hardware are not included in the platform license. Where a study requires connected devices, the institution either procures the hardware directly from the original manufacturer at its own expense, or submits a request for quotation to Vitruvian Shield Portugal.
Each active wearable integrated into the platform generates a monthly EDC integration fee of CHF 30 per device, invoiced to the institution for the duration of the study.
Access model and Institutional Administrator
The license is granted at institutional level. Vitruvian Shield Portugal provisions a single administrative account to the institution, held by a named Institutional Administrator designated at signature — typically the head of the research office, the director of the clinical research unit, or an equivalent authority.
The Institutional Administrator is responsible for provisioning, managing, and deprovisioning all sub-users within the institution, including principal investigators, study coordinators, post-docs, doctoral candidates, and graduate students. The Administrator also ensures that each sub-user completes the required onboarding training, complies with the acceptable use policy, and is removed from the platform upon leaving the institution.
Vitruvian Shield Portugal interacts exclusively with the Institutional Administrator for support, renewals, and contractual matters. End users do not contact Vitruvian Shield directly. An annual roster confirmation is required from the Administrator as a condition of license renewal.
Eligibility
The Program is open to all non-profit Portuguese research entities, including public and private universities, university hospitals, Unidades Locais de Saúde research units, IPSS research arms, and Portuguese research foundations.
To be admitted, an institution must:
- Demonstrate access to a recognised research ethics committee
- Name an Institutional Administrator at signature
- Name at least one principal investigator with a verifiable academic affiliation
- Submit a research question or draft protocol
- Provide a Portuguese tax identification number (NIF)
Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis.
License terms and data ownership
License term
Twelve months from acceptance, renewable annually at the discretion of Vitruvian Shield Portugal upon submission of a short progress report and the annual roster confirmation.
Data ownership
The institution retains full ownership of the clinical data it collects through the platform. Vitruvian Shield reserves the right to use anonymised, aggregated platform metadata to improve the underlying technology and to reference the deployment, by institutional name and at study level, in scientific, regulatory, and investor communications.
Scope
The Program is strictly academic. Use of the platform for industry-sponsored or commercially-funded clinical work falls outside the scope of this license and requires a separate commercial agreement with Vitruvian Shield.
Publications and citation
Every scientific output produced with the Vitruvian Shield platform — peer-reviewed articles, abstracts, posters, theses, and conference presentations — must cite the platform using the standard citation format provided at onboarding. Where the Vitruvian Shield scientific team contributes intellectually to the design, methodology, or analysis of a study, co-authorship is to be discussed and offered in line with ICMJE criteria.
Support
The Program includes the academic support tier, delivered exclusively to the Institutional Administrator: documentation, training materials, monthly virtual office hours, and email-based assistance during Lisbon working hours. The Administrator cascades knowledge and first-line support to sub-users within the institution. Real-time support, dedicated implementation engineering, and 24-hour service levels are reserved for commercial customers.
How to apply
Eligible institutions are invited to submit a letter of intent designating the proposed Institutional Administrator, the principal investigators expected to use the platform in the first year, a short description of the proposed research, the expected number of participants, the connected devices envisaged (if any), and a contact at the institutional research office.
Contact
Vitruvian Shield Portugal
- [Registered address — to be inserted from Registo Comercial]