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

If all the cities are places with a soul, the spirit of Porto has a feature that is outstanding in the whole Nation. It is said that the peoples of the North are very proud of their land. They have good reasons for it. The secular stones of this city, who’s Historic Centre deserved being considered as World Heritage by Unesco, witness what is best among the Portuguese: fraternal loyalty, respect for the given word, the love of truth and freedom.

Not by chance, when I was sworn in as President of the Republic, in 2006, I immediately decided that the celebrations of the National Day of Portugal should be held in this city. Now, at the beginning of a new mandate, it was precisely Porto that I elected as the destination of my first trip.

Because Porto is owed by Portugal for illuminative pages of its History of many centuries and because one of its greatest riches is 100 years old today: its University, a veritable centre of transmission of knowledge, of academic spirit, of scientific research and a source of development of the social and entrepreneurial fabric of our Country.

It is with great pride that I associate myself to this solemn commemoration of the centenary of the formal constitution of Porto University. An University whose origins go back to the 18th century, to the reign of King Dom José, who knew how to face the threatening billows of History and of Time and which is today the largest and one of the most prestigious learning and scientific research institutions in Portugal, fully recognized in the European and International perspectives.

At the time when the acceleration of History leaves us, once again, insecure and perplexed in the face of the tremors of the prior certainties and the challenges of the future, as we could assess from the lecture of Professor Eduardo Lourenço, it is institutions like this one that can lead the capability to understand the realities that surround us and once more regard the World with the ambition and daring in parallel with our historical scrolls.

It is in effect an outstanding institution capable of attracting, each year, not only the best Portuguese students, candidates to higher education, but also thousands of foreign students, who come here to attend Erasmus or other training programmes.

I know that, in the current school year, this number is in excess of 2700 students, from 57 countries. This dynamic student interchange, in which Portugal has known how to make visible its presence and is already a valuable asset of our society, is extremely important.

An interchange that takes place in a stage of life that can be considered as the founding of adult life, during which bonds and influences are construed and asserted that will integrate the references of the future, creating an enormously valuable social and economic network, the potential of which it is our duty to take advantage of and stimulate.

Porto University also greatly honours its foundational values when it interacts with the industrial fabric and drives innovation, or when it opens its doors to the people for its projects to become publicly known, in a model of cooperation that is clearly a great benefit for the Country.

Quality and diversified offer, dissemination of knowledge, demand in objectives, encouragement of merit, are the indicators of a successful institution and the persistent references that explain a clear fingerprint of a centenary life in Portuguese society, in many differing areas of learning and scientific research such as medicine, engineering, the arts, economics or architecture.

We can thus assert without fear that an institution that overcame, masterly and in a position of leadership, last century’s hindrances, is certainly prepared to face the changes that are challenging us in this new century..

Changes that have gained an impressive rhythm. It is enough to ascertain how, just one decade ago, everything was so different, enough to ascertain how the generations that now arrive at the university do not even remember our previous currency, the escudo, how they are unable to communicate without recourse to the social networks or to information technologies, how they never saw a borderless Europe and are not even aware of what were segmented markets.

Deep changes in social characteristics but also technological, geopolitical, environmental, demographical and scientific.

The only safe answer to all these changes is the search for excellence, the capability to compete and to become included in the top group.

The substantial increase in the access of youngsters to the different degrees of learning and the growing qualification of the people is triggering, in the emerging economies and in the developing countries, a new political and social landscape. The same is true, anyway, in other regions, obliged to compete in more than ever demanding stages.

If any doubts were to subsist, just this fact would constitute an undeniable answer to the growing importance of young people’s qualifications and to continuing their studies throughout life.

But, in this incessant movement, we cannot lose sight of the objectives that will ultimately justify the dynamics of endeavouring to build a better society, give people due value, improve the quality of life, combat injustices and inequalities.

Paradoxically, because we live better than we did one hundred years ago, we are more demanding, and this trend increases the degree of dissatisfaction. And this process is particularly visible in the better qualified youngsters, impatient to materialize the dreams in which they and their families invested, and many of them frustrated by the delays in fulfilling their aspirations.

This, however, should not lead young people to lower their arms and, much less, to give up becoming qualified. On the contrary, sooner or later, they will be able to confirm that the only guaranteed investment is that which brings knowledge, competence and the capacity to view the World in a dynamic and multicultural perspective. And, in this area, the global world is more than ever demanding.

In addition, to live in freedom it is necessary to be able to choose freely, and this choice implies being knowledgeable and being able to assess the available options and those of greater interest to each one. Ignorance or lack of culture have never been good counsellors. The greater the knowledge and intellectual development, the greater will be the capability to carry out informed choices, that will in effect propitiate a better world.

University is, primarily, the environment where the answer to these expectations can be found, an answer capable to prepare citizens that are free, participating and conscious of the relevance of their choice.

It is true that all this effort to obtain high level results demands adequate resources and involves a necessary autonomy of decision. The lack of resources or their unpredictability can induce a hard to recover delay in a context of global inflamed competition. This is a risk that must be very carefully assessed in its collective consequences.

Although unavoidable, the imperatives of contention and rigour in the spending of public funds must not place in danger neither the access of the neediest to higher education, nor the minimum conditions for maintaining a teaching, scientifically qualified and driven complement.

To serve the Country. That is the essence of republican patriotism, that led to the foundation of the now centenary universities and it is with this spirit that we must continue to view the future.

As President of the Republic, I want to express my enormous pride in the way Porto University has served the Country, growing and asserting itself throughout a century as an institution of reference.

I have decided, for this reason, to award Porto University with the title of Honorary Member of the Military Order of Sant’Iago da Espada, a decoration that aims to distinguish scientific institutions, and whose insignia I will have the pleasure to hand over to the Magnificent Chancellor of this University. I do so with the absolute certainty that, receiving it, Porto University will confirm the prestige and the highly demanding criteria of this distinction.

I congratulate the University and all that have worked and studied there throughout this century.

I did not want to end without letting you know, very simply, that Portugal views itself in the much that you have accomplished in the past, trusts in your contribution to the present and, for this reason, with legitimate hope, counts on you for the future.

Thank you very much.