The Universidade Católica Portuguesa (UCP) participated in Transform4Europe (T4EU): The European University for Knowledge Entrepreneurs Strategic Assembly and Policy Conference, which took place from 17 to 19 October, at the Universität des Saarland, Germany.

Isabel Vasconcelos and Peter Hanenberg, Vice-Rectors, and Francisco Mendes Palma, Director of Global Engagement, represented the UCP delegation, joined by Rita Sampaio and Francisca Ferreira, students from Católica Lisbon School of Business and Economics, and the Faculty of Biotechnology. The students participated virtually in the Students' Council meeting.

The representatives participated actively in several discussions, namely in preparing the 2023 application Erasmus+ European Universities, which included contributions from several academic and non-academic structures of Católica. Work will continue in Lisbon, on the next 13 and 14 of December 2022.

The presence of UCP in the Strategic Assembly and in the meeting of the Institutional Coordinators of the T4EU Alliance, which it joined on May 9, 2022, affirms the global internationalization strategy of Católica and its commitment to building European university alliances.

An essential cooperation to "strengthen the European dimension of UCP, with partners from nine EU countries, in a strong commitment to study and monitor the societal, environmental and digital transformations that we are experiencing," explains Peter Hanenberg.

Check the complete programme.

Universidade Católica Portuguesa was awarded the Quality Seal of the Voluntary Academy of CASES - António Sérgio Cooperative for the Social Economy for the work developed by CASO - CAtólica SOlidária, in the Porto Regional Centre, with 20 years of experience in the area of university volunteering.

The jury of the initiative, which unanimously approved the application of the University, recognizes that "the practices, dynamics, and instruments created and developed by the UCP in favour of promoting the practice of volunteering are worthy of distinction."

The Quality Seal was awarded in a public ceremony, at Culturgest, on International Volunteer Day, December 5. UCP was represented by Vice-Rector J. M. Pereira de Almeida, the Dean's Advisor for Social Responsibility and Coordinator of the Social Responsibility Office, Rita Paiva e Pona, and the Coordinator of the Unit for the Integral Development of the Person of the Regional Center of Porto, Carmo Themudo.

The Porto Regional Centre has been organising, for about 10 years, a "Tertulia" with several guests, from different fields of expertise, which aims to analyse and discuss relevant issues for Portuguese society. 

After an interruption due to the pandemic, when it functioned online, the Tertulia resumed the face-to-face model. At the same time, it also brought some changes compatible with the purpose of always: to promote the debate, free, of ideas not necessarily conventional.

The Tertulia seeks to bring the contribution of various disciplinary areas cultivated at the Porto Regional Centre (CRP) of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa: law, psychology, arts, theology, biotechnology, life sciences.

In the current context, the theme had to be Uncertainty. The title for the meeting was provocative: "Glossary of Uncertainty: to foresee is not...". After the initial interventions of the Pro-Rector of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Isabel Braga da Cruz, and the Director of the Faculty of Biotechnology and hostess of the session, Paula Castro, the Tertulia developed from the interventions of Alberto Castro and José Pintos dos Santos, the coordinators of this initiative.

Quoting Marquês de Maricá, a 19th century Brazilian philosopher, Alberto Castro states that "people generally prefer deceit, which reassures them, to uncertainty, which bothers them". "To deal with the challenges and unknowns that the future holds, it is necessary to realise that the appropriate response will be substantially different depending on whether we are talking about risks, more or less quantifiable, or situations of absolute uncertainty ("unknown unknowns"). This is certain! Let's not fool ourselves!".