Not in the way she carries herself, direct, warm, self-assured without performance, but in the choices she made and, perhaps more tellingly, in the ones she did not. In a country that tends to measure success by looking outward, Elvira built something world-class right next to home.

The coordinates of a promising future

Born and raised in Almada, it turned out to be the precise coordinates of a promising future. When she was finishing high school, the Faculty of Science and Technology, from Nova University of Lisbon, had just been established in Monte da Caparica, close to where she lived. She knew she wanted to be an engineer and applied for Environmental Engineering; however, her grades placed her in her second option: Physics and Materials Engineering. Despite her initial intention to switch later, she “ended up liking it,” she says, with the kind of matter-of-factness that suggests she has long stopped being surprised by the good things that came from that particular detour.

Need for curiosity

Author: João R. Neves;

To Elvira, a scientist is not necessarily defined by perfect grades or a strictly linear plan. Instead, above all, a scientist needs to be curious. Curiosity, resilience, and the stubborn confidence to believe in what you are doing even before the rest of the world has caught up. That set of traits shaped Elvira’s trajectory from that point forward.

A sustainability project

In 2008, sustainability was not yet the institutional reflex it has since become. The United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals were still seven years away, and the language of green technology had not yet permeated every research proposal and corporate report. And yet, Elvira’s laboratory was already doing what others were not: building electronic components from materials that were non-toxic, abundant, and environmentally friendly, processed at room temperature. That last detail, room temperature, was the competitive advantage. At the time, every comparable research group worldwide working with oxide semiconductors, one in Tokyo, one in Oregon, was processing these materials at high temperatures. What appears to be a mere technical distinction makes, in practice, a big change when applied to industry.

Around that period, Elvira submitted a proposal to the European Research Council for the project INVISIBLE. Despite discouraging feedback at the national level, she moved forward and not only secured the grant but did so as the top-ranked proposal in its field.

INVISIBLE produced new oxide based transistors, as well as, the first paper transistor, a functioning electronic device built on cellulose, the most abundant polymer on Earth, and it did so in a way that moved unusually fast from laboratory discovery to industrial application. It attracted the attention of major technology companies, including Samsung, which engaged with the laboratory in Caparica for display testing, leading to multiple patents. In 2020, more than a decade after its inception, the project was awarded the Horizon Impact Award by the European Commission, selected from among thousands of funded projects for the scale and speed of its real-world impact.

Escalating recognition

The recognition kept escalating. In a recent call for advanced materials under Horizon Europe, a programme where researchers from all 27 member states compete on equal terms, Portugal stood alongside countries with higher infrastructure and funding capability, such as Germany and France. Of the four projects selected, two of the awarded involved Elvira’s group. Over the years, her laboratory has secured more than 78.5 million euros in research funding.

Remarkably, Elvira’s academic path and career were built largely in Portugal. Together with her husband, Rodrigo Martins, and given the opportunity, she was able to construct a research group that is now an international reference. She travels extensively, evaluates universities abroad, and sits on panels across Europe, but always returns. “I know the world,” she says, “I just built here.”

Frustrating bureaucracy

Even with a distinguished career, Elvira still points to a persistent frustration: Portuguese bureaucracy. She describes it with a particular weariness that comes from having tried to change the system both from within and from the outside. In her view, it remains one of the greatest obstacles to Portuguese science, not funding, not talent, but bureaucracy itself. She explains that money arriving from the European Commission, unbudgeted and earned through intense competition, enters universities and is immediately “painted the same colour” as standard state expenditure, becoming subject to the same administrative constraints, procurement timelines, and institutional inertia. In research, timing is critical; a result achieved months later can, in competitive fields, mean it was achieved too late. Despite her two years as Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education, she remains clear about what did not change.

Constant state of inquiry

For Elvira, being a scientist means living in a constant state of inquiry, an ongoing cycle of discovery and dissatisfaction. Looking ahead, she speaks of the ambition to build an institute with the infrastructure and space that matches what her laboratory has become. At the same time, she speaks about her students, the engineers she trains, who leave carrying the same implicit challenge she once encountered: here is something unresolved, take it further.

Elvira’s work is a reflection of a sometimes overlooked idea, science is not an individual process but a collective one. She often recalls an African proverb that captures this precisely: if you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.

In the end, we are now able to use sustainable materials in electronics, such as paper, in part because Elvira persistently explored a possibility that was not yet obvious.