Inauguration Speech as Rector of Iscte

March 8th, 2022

Dear Chairman of the General Council

Dear Members of the General Council

Dear Chairman of the Board of Trustees and other members present

Distinguished guests

Dear colleagues, employees, and students

Allow me a special greeting and a thank you to the Vice-Rectors who have accompanied me during the last 4 years and are now leaving office: Professors Isabel Salavisa, Elizabeth Reis and José Azevedo Rodrigues.

2022 The year in which I start a new mandate as dean of Iscte.

The initiatives launched in the last four years, which justify the motivation to renew the commitment I assumed then as rector, are summarized in the five objectives and the five priorities I presented in my candidacy.

The first objective, and priority, is the financial sustainability of Iscte. Iscte has, as we all know, a history of success. The main obstacle to its sustainable development lies in public funding. The non-application of the law for financing higher education institutions, more than 10 years ago, and the distribution of public money without taking into account the number of students in each institution, seriously jeopardizes the financial sustainability of Iscte, as well as that of all universities and polytechnics which, since then, have increased their number of students. The Iscte receives an annual public allocation to finance 5,900 students, when it already has around 11,000. The priority is, therefore, to demand compliance with the law.

The second objective, and priority, is to promote interdisciplinarity and internationalization. In the last four years, a successful effort was made to strengthen multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary activities, as well as internationalization. In education, with new courses and with the enlargement, in the existing study plans, of the possibilities for students to choose optional subjects in new areas. In research, with the creation of entities that constitute spaces for collaborative work, for the affirmation of the need and indispensability of the social sciences and humanities in the progress of knowledge and of the virtualities of their intersection with information technology. This priority will be realized with the completion of the renovation of the building on Avenida das Forças Armadas - Iscte, Conhecimento e Inovação - which will house all the centers and resources for research and doctoral training.

The third objective, and priority, is to improve working conditions. Here the verb is really to improve. In the last four years many decisions have been taken that have significantly changed the conditions of remuneration and career positions for professors, researchers, and employees. It is a matter of continuing on this path. The new priority, now, the urgency, is to improve the physical and technological working conditions and the functioning of the services.

The fourth goal, and priority, is the attraction, integration, and success of students. In this area, it will be fundamental to provide housing conditions in residences that will certainly contribute to a more complete, integrated, and autonomous experience of life at the university. A goal already present four years ago that external constraints have compromised, but today closer to being realized due to the change in those constraints.

Finally, the fifth objective, and priority, is the construction of Iscte-Sintra, the fifth school of the University Institute of Lisbon. With this project, the Iscte responds to a political problem of a gap in the network of higher education offerings in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, in the country's second largest municipality in number of residents and first in number of young people. And it responds with an innovative educational offer that articulates knowledge in technologies, economy and society.

These five objectives are part of the motivation to continue the work that has been started. However, the main motivation to assume again the leadership of Iscte is to be able to contribute to consolidate its affirmation as a university of reference. And about the consolidation of Iscte as a university of reference, I carry with me three concerns - autonomy, relevance and quality.

About autonomy. Universities are special institutions. Their main mission is to produce knowledge, transmit it and disseminate it. In order for them to fulfill their mission well, organizational and operational conditions are necessary. The first of these conditions is autonomy, that is, a framework of rules that permits the exercise of research and teaching activities with professional freedom and with pluralism, favoring an informed and collegial debate of ideas.

My concern over the past four years has been, and continues to be today, to direct the Iscte as a university institution, comping, balancing, the demands of a rigorous and efficient management of resources with the preservation of the rules of collegiality, collaborative work, autonomy, and freedom of initiative of faculty and researchers. This balance is a narrow path. It has to be walked and consolidated. Iscte will not be a university, any university will not be a university, with the possibility of fully fulfilling its mission, if it does not seek to build and consolidate this difficult framework of internal rules.

But the question of autonomy also arises in the relationship between universities and public authorities, with the tutelage, and in the way in which the material conditions are provided so that they can fulfill their mission: be they financial and technological resources, physical space, or human resources, teachers and employees. The autonomy of universities, enshrined in the Constitution, cannot be a principle translated only in the rules of self-government and, even so, in an insufficient way and permanently suffocated in the budgetary plan.

The autonomy of universities must allow a diversity of models and projects, and it must include the ideas that universities may have for themselves and for the development of the country. Here too there is a narrow path to follow. Because these are, unfortunately, times of standardization of models. From this point of view, the support granted to universities in the scope of the PRR runs the risk of ending up being a lost opportunity. The imposition, by the tutelage, of conservative and protective rules of what exists, contrary to the very spirit of the RRP, has made narrower and more compromised the space of participation of universities in the design of solutions for the challenges of the economic and social recovery of the country, with autonomy, freedom and capacity for innovation.

On relevance. Some say that universities are very conservative institutions, closed in on themselves, in "ivory towers," incapable of reform and innovation. This statement is contradicted every day by the facts. In Portugal, in democracy, with the demands of quality and qualification of teachers and researchers, with the articulation between teaching and research activities, with openness and integration in specific territorial contexts, universities have decisively contributed to modernize the country.

It has been my concern over the last four years, and it continues to be today, to lead the Iscte promoting its affirmation as a university without walls, open and committed to responding to the contemporary challenges of inequalities, integration and inclusion of diversity, digital and environmental transition.

Openness, commitment, and involvement are also a narrow path that has been traversed and consolidated. But the times demand that we not lose sight of the fact that universities are a space for the production of knowledge and unsubmissive, uncompromised, free thinking, eventually useless from the point of view of economic or political, immediate or short-term interests.

Finally, quality. Affirming and consolidating Iscte as a university requires us to be demanding, to align activities, procedures, and ambition with international standards. To do well, to always do better in teaching, research, and the diffusion of knowledge. Dissemination that has many modalities but which involves, as a priority, the training, every year, of more qualified young people and adults, with more knowledge and more competences, which, fully mobilized, can contribute a lot to the development of the Portuguese society. The best contribution that universities can give to societies is to perform their education and research mission well, with quality. Therefore, producing and transferring more and better knowledge requires the application of rigorous mechanisms for evaluation, not only quantitative, of the activities and projects of teaching and research. Demands that Iscte accepts and incorporates in its academic life.

In today's turmoil, with the pressure to solve problems quickly, we are witnessing a certain impatience, simplistic views, of what is the specificity of universities as institutions of knowledge production, which either devalue it or pose unadjusted challenges. We will not give in to this whirlwind.

I have assumed with myself, and now with the institution I lead, the responsibility to demonstrate that it is possible and desirable to preserve the autonomy, the relevance and the quality of the activities developed at the Iscte, and in this way consolidate its position as a university of reference.

2022. The year in which Iscte celebrates 50 years of existence.

Iscte was created in 1972, within the scope of a higher education reform with the express mission of contributing to the modernization of universities and the country, through the diversification of training, the articulation between teaching and research and the enhancement of relations with the world of work, business and public institutions.

In the following years, new universities and polytechnics were created. The 25th of April renewed the sense of reform, making more explicit the goals of expansion and diversification of higher education. The changes introduced with democracy were profound and not limited to the creation of new institutions.

What is certain is that today, 50 years after the creation of the first of the new institutions, we can conclude that the higher education institutions, new and old, have followed the path of reform and, as I mentioned before, have played a decisive role in the modernization of the country. Thousands of doctors, engineers, jurists, managers, teachers and other graduates have been trained, qualifying the institutions where they exercise their profession. Thousands of researchers were trained and are part of the country's scientific and technological system, producing more and better scientific knowledge. And, I repeat because it is never too much to remember, the training, every year, of more qualified young people and adults, with more knowledge and more competences, is a fundamental contribution of universities to the development of Portuguese society.

Today, the worst obstacle to the virtuous relationship between university development and the country's development is the idea that everything is done. The idea that all the objectives have already been achieved: we already have the most qualified generation, we have already increased the number of students in higher education, we have already produced knowledge, now we just need to apply it and innovate. Nothing could be more wrong.

The future is very demanding. New challenges require new science, innovation, and higher education policies that are truly articulated, that stimulate collaborative and multidisciplinary work, that remove technical and bureaucratic constraints, and that ensure, rather than block, universities' autonomy and capacity for innovation. Continuing to modernize the country therefore requires renewing the reformist spirit of 50 years ago.

It was with the aim of launching a wider debate on the future of universities that I invited Professor António Feijó, a professor at the University of Lisbon, to give a lecture, adding a new meaning to this protocol ceremony. And I hope it can be the beginning of a wider reflection. I take this opportunity to thank Professor António Feijó for his availability and generosity.

2022 is the year a new mandate begins.

2022 is the year in which we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Iscte.

2022 may be the year when a reformist orientation for the universities is resumed.

2022, unfortunately, will go down in history mainly as the year of the beginning of a war in Europe.

Despite the peace that reigns in this auditorium, the general feeling is that universal values of democracy, freedom, peace, and respect for human dignity are once again at risk. There is a country that is assuming the responsibility to resist, as a protective shield of those values, paying the enormous cost of destruction and loss of life of men, women and children all by itself. For our Ukrainian friends, a final word of solidarity. And the affirmation of Iscte's availability, accompanying CRUP and all universities, to integrate students, professors and other Ukrainians who arrive in our country.

Thank you very much.