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

I am very pleased to take part in this 11th COTEC National Meeting on Innovation, where the Talent topic was discussed as well as the presentation of the study “Transforming Portugal’s Talent”, the result of a joint initiative of COTEC-Portugal and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, both of which I greet as personified by Professor João Bento and Dr. Artur Santos Silva.

The creation of wealth and prosperity of an advanced economy largely results from the capability, through knowledge and technology, to project the future and materialize innovations that benefit the community.

Throughout the years COTEC has been identifying the great innovators in the national economy, within which the SME Innovation Network companies are an outstanding feature, and has equally distinguished the most innovating companies with the SME Innovation and the Innovatory Product Prizes.

Concerning this, COTEC very positively answered my challenge and enabled the expansion of this Network which I recall was set up in 2005, with 24 companies; as a notable example of entrepreneurial cooperation, it has now expanded to comprise 252 companies. I thus congratulate the companies that have recently joined us, selected through the application of strict criteria, and for the ambition shown in accepting the challenge and the responsibility of becoming included in a privileged group.

I equally take advantage of this moment to congratulate the winners of the SME Innovation and the Innovatory Product Prizes which we are celebrating here today.

In an analytical perspective of the innovation process, COTEC-Portugal and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation wished to further it, endeavouring to identify the critical “raw-material” required for successful innovation.

The study “Transforming Portugal’s Talent”, which I sponsored and have closely accompanied, focuses its attention on the issue on how to identify, develop and materialize the potential of human talent, and undertakes a full diagnosis on how innovation may be sustained when started in a process of talent management.

This work allows us to better understand which are the decisive factors in the process of production of national talent and how it may be improved.

We have to recognize that the globalization of companies’ chains of production, the opening up of trade and the internationalization of scientific cooperation are powerful forces that will stimulate, as never before, the mobility of professionals, especially those that are better qualified. The intensity of these phenomena will grow very significantly with the further integration of the economies.

We find, in Portugal, an insufficient appreciation either of talent and the potential for individual development or the contribution that this potential can mean for organizations.

The young Portuguese have the very justified ambition to be able to assert, in Portugal or abroad, their individual options and to become responsible and recognized for these, when reaching by their own merit, outstanding and highly remunerative positions.

We are now very much more conscious of this phenomenon, of its consequences and of the sense of urgency in the need to change this state of affairs.

We must thus appreciate the potential of the talent produced in Portugal and create the necessary conditions to bring back those that left the Country contrary to their wishes.

There is an issue which is even more grievous and that must be corrected. Our talents seem to receive greater appreciatuion in Portugal after having been screened by an assessment abroad. It seems that we are more confident in how others assess talent than in our own criteria.

This is a reasoning that must be adjusted to the new reality of a global world, where competitiveness ignited by talent results in an effective loss for those who are unaware how to motivate, captivate and retain their own values.

We must however assume a cool and realistic view of this reality in the global world, refusing the idea that emigration is necessarily an irreversible loss to the Country. We must, in any case, create attractive conditions for everyone, for those who wish to stay on and for those who, living abroad, wish to return or to live in Portugal.

For this reason, I insist, it is essential that Portuguese society recognizes and appreciates those that, due to their capabilities, their qualifications and, above all, their dynamism, stand out by their talent.

Talent management is a transversal topic in Portuguese society and a determining issue for our collective future.

Domestically, the need is to identify and encourage the potentialities of our young people, be they researchers and scientists, entrepreneurs or employees, creators and artists, or voluntary workers who give the best of themselves at the service of others or for the common good.

Qualifications and merits of the new generations must be upheld and transformed in value. This is where Portugal’s greatest strategic asset is embedded.

The disclosure of examples of success and the formulation of material proposals to promote talent are mustering elements for the whole of society, demonstrating that merit and excellence are within everyone’s reach, in the framework of a political, social and economic framework guided by principles of impartiality and of equal opportunities.

This is a wish that is as ambitious as it is imperative. Talent is born in any family, independently from its resources, and as such no one may be impaired by the context of his specific situation. The Country and the economy cannot continue to permit the waste of potential talents due to lack of opportunities or capacity to flatter them or allow them to flourish. We are facing challenges that must be approached at the very start of the school age.

The truly central challenge is to allow itself to be the means of identifying talents and, above all, where an auspicious environment could be created to loosen and develop each one’s capabilities.

The study carried out by COTEC-Portugal and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation is an extremely important contribution for a rigorous survey of the current situation and for a dynamic and sustained future transformation, since it establishes an hierarchy of priorities for the organization of the solutions and measures and because it correctly identifies the role that all are called upon to perform in their respective spheres of influence.

I underline two of the proposals presented:

• Energize the identification of youths when in school age, enabling teachers to perform a key educational role in the school of the future, appreciating the teaching profession in society; and
• Create organizational practises in training, assessment and development of talents within organizations.

These proposals are particularly important bases for an agenda for change guided towards the future, a change which is urgent and which is, more than ever, relevant for the self-fulfilment of the Portuguese and for our collective success.

I am convinced of the opportunity and merit of the “Transforming Portugal’s Talent” which was presented here today, and for this reason I expect it to become a mustering tool for parents, teachers, entrepreneurs, managers, indeed for all those impelled by the strength of talent. Due to the interest it has awakened, I believe this initiative will constitute an extremely important contribution for the Country’s development.

I wish to make known my keenest appreciation to the promoters of this initiative and warmly greet all the intervening parties and participants in this Meeting.

Thank you very much