Welcome to the Official page of the Presidency of the Portuguese Republic

Members of the Government
Dean of Universidade Técnica de Lisboa
Vice-Dean of Universidade Técnica de Lisboa
Mister President of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is with great pleasure that I am attending the celebration of the seventy-fifth anniversary of Universidade Técnica de Lisboa to which I extend my wishes that it will continue its proficuous work contributing to the development of the country.

This was my first university. Here I studied and here I taught during many years. Here I made lasting friendships. I would therefore like to bear personal witness to the work carried out by this institution and to its decisive influence in the enhancement of many generations of youths.

The development and progress experienced during the various cycles in the life of the country, the history of which has been widely discussed during these commemorations, owe much to the action of the colleges of the Technical University, to its teachers and its researchers, and to the vision of those who have occupied positions of responsibility during these 75 years.

The remarkable path that it has followed means that the Universidade Técnica de Lisboa has great responsibilities towards the future. It has accumulated experience, overcome resistance, and often influenced those who decide. Today, it has the means, the facilities, the human resources and the prestige that lend it inestimable value in the drive for the progress and wellbeing that we all wish for the country.

UTL is a truly multifaceted institution, constituting one of the most powerful assets of its scientific heritage and of its experience as a centre for the production and transmission of know-how.

There are many examples of the contributions made by this university to scientific culture, to knowledge and to research, from the classic scientific areas to areas that have acquired a tradition among us, such as ecological and forestry studies, econometrics, international relations, labour sociology or sport, right down to the more recent fields of knowledge, such as nanotechnology, computing and quantum information, and the biotechnologies.

Also important is the openness that it has implemented with regard to the business world and to society, fostering the entrepreneurial culture that ought to be a part of higher education. The strengthening of the interlink between lecturers, researchers, students and science-based companies open to innovation is a source of mutual benefits that are of the utmost importance to Portugal.

The paths that must be followed for the affirmation of the knowledge society must increasingly be able to rely on the contribution of the universities in the transfer of knowledge. This includes activities such as the creation of structures to interface with the outside world, incubation spaces, encouragement of technology-based entrepreneurship or the protection of intellectual property though patent registration and management.

The rhythm and intensity of the interaction between Portuguese universities and companies must increase and become an acquired, permanent culture, a new source of demands and of an advanced vision of the future

It’s not worth wasting time on discussing whether the blame for the low level of this interaction lies with the universities or the companies. What is important is to look to the future so that it can never again be said that the universities are enclosed in their ivory towers because, in actual fact, such words are no longer meaningful.

It’s up to the universities to induce progress, impelling society to go farther, always with their gaze on what is impossible only for those who neither want nor are prepared to take risks.

The diversity that was at the genesis and in the development of the UTL involves an interdisciplinary culture that constitutes the indispensable answer to the paradigm of complexity.

UTL’s College of Integrated Studies is clearly the symbol of an institution that knows how to search for new answers in co-operatioing and converging with various areas of knowledge and with the essential production centres.

It is a known fact, today, that the principal wealth of a country or of an institution, be it a company or a public service, is the people who live and work there. Without qualified, enterprising people motivated and able to learn on a permanent basis, routine, indifference and discouragement take over.

Every one involved in the education system is aware that the ability to adapt, initiative and ongoing demand are instilled in youths right from an early age, and this is vital if they are to advance in a global market undergoing fast mutation.

This will and this drive are irreversibly consolidated as the youths advance in their studies and deepen their knowledge of and involvement with the increasingly sophisticated environments of knowledge and experience.

Therefore, lack of success at school, dropping out of the education system or lack of progress in higher education are truly a serious waste that must be fought with all our strength and capabilities.

In the complex world in which we live, Portuguese youths – students, workers or entrepreneurs – must be able to find the opportunities and the enhancement they need to become complete, accomplished people

We cannot promise youth a smooth, comfortable risk-free path. Learning is arduous and difficult, it requires effort and persistence, and the knowledge acquired at university has an increasingly short life expectancy.

Solid basic training, as well as ongoing training and learning are a condition of success in any professional or scientific area.

Portuguese society expects that the university will provide all with the opportunity to access the knowledge that it produces, through the innovation and flexibility of its teaching programmes.

Relations with institutions of other countries and the university’s international involvement are increasingly becoming conditions essential to the full development of its potential and of its openness to new areas of action and learning.

University and scientific interchange, in which the UTL has always been a major player, is now unprecedently dynamic and unavoidable. Mobility has become an integral part of the life of students and teachers. Professional activity in any area is no longer a closed circuit or a sphere of exclusive action.

We all know that Portuguese higher education is undergoing profound reform, one that is absolutely essential if we are to have an active voice, one that is fully recognised within the European space of education and employability.

The Bologna Process is far more than a proposal and an invitation. It is a message of the urgency in recouping competitiveness and of keeping in step with the best of our counterpart institutions throughout Europe.

Consolidating the success associated with the various programmes for the mobility of European citizens, in which the Erasmus Programme plays an outstanding role, the Bologna Process now sets us a challenge for a far more ambitious horizon, the challenge of building a true European knowledge space. Portugal’s scientific community must come to be recognised as an integral part of this space.

Learning, training and employment are viewed in a perspective of convergence at European level, which implies comparability of the various courses and education systems, with the consequent transparency of the definition of the respective contents and objectives.

More than a demand for reform of the curricular plans or of short-term adaptations, Bologna should be viewed as a true opportunity for those schools and institutions that, aware of the mission with which they are entrusted in today’s Portugal, are not resigned to being average and seek a position of relevance at international level.

More than new curricula, it’s a question of creating the bases of a new attitude towards education, learning and life-long training as a factor essential to success in the employment market of the future.

The new formulae that will model higher education will have to be created by the institutions themselves. We are faced, let me say, with the test of the principle of autonomy in higher education.

Of all the great institutions of Portuguese society, the universities, for their history, their nature, for the quality of the people who make them up, have a special vocation in questioning their role and in adapting, thus leading to their advancement.

It could not reasonably be expected that such a change could be undertaken without tensions, without hesitations, without criticisms. We know, and the schools teach us this, that between two positions in balance, the old and the new, there is a process of dynamic adjustment that is not always linear or smooth. But this must not prevent us from evolving and accompanying the demanding rate of progress that is required of us.

The dimension of the changes that are required and their practical consequences at the level of the affirmation of the country, against a European background of mobility and employability, are not just an issue internal to academia, even though its responsibilities in this are immense. They are a national issue.

The heart of university autonomy is clear to see here: that ideal point at which the degree of scientific, pedagogic and financial autonomy and the degree of responsibility that the universities must assume before the community come together.

Portuguese society expects of the universities ambition and leadership within a framework in which the affirmation of competitiveness, quality, excellence and capacity for innovation are vital.

The UTL has in its matrix the sense of openness to the demands of the new times, the mark of determination in facing the things that threaten and challenge it, emerging strengthened in its thriving colleges and prestige. I am certain it will continue to be so in the future.

To the Universidade Técnica de Lisboa’s teachers, researchers, students and employees my congratulations of the 75 yearns that have been travelled, and I would like to reaffirm my confidence in the success that will mark the coming years.

Portugal is counting on your best.