José Mariano Rebelo Pires Gago (16 May 1948 – 17 April 2015) was a Portuguese physicist, professor and politician, mostly known for his tenures as Minister for Science and Higher Education. He held government offices for a total of 13 years, more than any other person since 1976. He graduated as an electrical engineer by the

University of Lisbon The University of Lisbon (ULisboa; ) is a public university, public research university in Lisbon, and Portugal's largest university. It was founded in 1911, but the university's present structure dates to the 2013 merger of the former Universit ...

Instituto Superior Técnico The Instituto Superior Técnico (IST, also known as Técnico, and stylized TÉCNICO LISBOA; English: ) is the school of engineering and technology of the University of Lisbon. It was founded as an autonomous school in 1911, and was integrated in ...

Lisbon Lisbon ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 567,131, as of 2023, within its administrative limits and 3,028,000 within the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, metropolis, as of 2025. Lisbon is mainlan ...

, and did advanced research work in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

at the

École Polytechnique (, ; also known as Polytechnique or l'X ) is a ''grande école'' located in Palaiseau, France. It specializes in science and engineering and is a founding member of the Polytechnic Institute of Paris. The school was founded in 1794 by mat ...

as a high-energy

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

. Professor of Physics at Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon, he worked at

CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in Meyrin, western suburb of Gene ...

(European Organization for Nuclear Research) in

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

for several years. He was a member of the CERN Council (1985–1990), the EC Joint Research Centre Board of Governors (1986–1989), President of the Portuguese National Board for Science and Technology (1986–1989), and was chair of the European

EUREKA Eureka often refers to: * Eureka (word), a famous exclamation attributed to Archimedes * Eureka effect, the sudden, unexpected realization of the solution to a problem Eureka or Ureka may also refer to: History * Eureka Rebellion, an 1854 g ...

initiative from July 1997 to June 1998. Prof. Gago was the Minister for Science and Technology of Portugal since 1995, and represented Portugal at the Council of Ministers for Research and Development of the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

. He was also responsible for the coordination of the Portuguese policy on Information Society, and for the promotion of science education and scientific culture. Throughout his career, Prof. Gago emphasised the link between teaching and research, and addressed issues such as whether universities should specialise more in teaching or in research and whether there were possible divergences between teaching and research priorities, although never managing to reach acceptable educational levels within some Portuguese higher education institutions. Prof. Gago was the founder of the ''Ciência Viva'' programme (since 1996), which on behalf of the Ministry of Science and Technology, aims to promote scientific and technological culture among the Portuguese population. "My generation's legacy will be that research and technology made great progress in being more accessible and understandable to the public. The present development of technical advancement would have been unthinkable if we were unable to rely on the basic technical knowledge of the average citizen," stated Prof. Gago. He also fostered research that is increasingly carried out in a framework of international cooperation, as a chance for Portugal to develop new products and provide new types of knowledge-intensive services. During his tenure as Minister for Science, Technology and Higher Education of the XVII Constitutional Government, Mariano Gago's Ministry was responsible for the compulsory closing of problematic and unreliable private higher education institutions (

Independente University Independente University (in Portuguese ''Universidade Independente'' or UnI for short) was a private university, headquartered in Lisbon, Portugal, founded in 1993 by Luís Arouca, Rui Verde and Amadeu Lima Carvalho; it was owned by SIDES (''Soc ...

and

Moderna University Moderna University (''Universidade Moderna'') was a Portuguese private university headquartered in Lisbon, with departments in Setúbal, Porto and Beja. The institution was authorized by the Portuguese Ministry of Education to provide university ...

). Mariano Gago was diagnosed with cancer in 2013. He died on 17 April 2015 of a sudden and unrelated illness.

Career as minister in the Government of Portugal

*From 26 October 2009 to 20 June 2011: Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education of the XVII Constitutional Government (Prime Minister

José Sócrates José Sócrates Carvalho Pinto de Sousa (born 6 September 1957), commonly known as José Sócrates (), is a Portuguese politician who was the prime minister of Portugal from 12 March 2005 to 21 June 2011. For the second half of 2007, he acted ...

) *From 12 March 2005 to 26 October 2009: Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education of the XVII Constitutional Government (Prime Minister José Sócrates) *From 25 October 1999 to 6 April 2002: Minister of Science and Technology of the XIV Constitutional Government (Prime Minister

António Guterres António Manuel de Oliveira Guterres (born 30 April 1949) is a Portuguese politician and diplomat who is serving as the ninth and current secretary-general of the United Nations since 2017. A member of the Socialist Party (Portugal), ...

) *From 28 October 1995 to 25 October 1999: Minister of Science and Technology of the XIII Constitutional Government (Prime Minister António Guterres)

External links

Biography on Portugal.gov.ptScientific publications of Mariano Gag
on

INSPIRE-HEP INSPIRE-HEP is an open access digital library for the field of high energy physics (HEP). It is the successor of the Stanford Physics Information Retrieval System (SPIRES) database, the main literature database for high energy physics since the 1 ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gago, Mariano 1948 births 2015 deaths People associated with CERN Socialist Party (Portugal) politicians Education ministers of Portugal Instituto Superior Técnico alumni Members of Academia Europaea Portuguese physicists