Editorial Note
Long Live the University of Lisbon | Prof. Fernandes e Fernandes
José Fernandes e Fernandes
Director of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon
The recent governmental approval of the Statutes of the new University of Lisbon, the election of the representatives to the General Council and the new University Senate and the choice of the future Rector will bring to a close a remarkable and outstanding time for Portuguese Universities and for the University of Lisbon.
This is happening at difficult times for Portuguese society, and in that aspect it is a remarkable proof of the vitality of institutions, of their culture and creative energy, and of their ability to face new challenges.
Some time ago, in an article published in the daily press, I pointed out that this change is occurring at an historical moment when the public university system is experiencing one of the most financially testing times in its history.
There are several reasons for this. The global financial crisis that swept states and institutions in Europe and the US is indeed one of the reasons, but there is another one, perhaps too ideological, which is endogenous and the result of a less realistic vision of the objectives of higher education. This fact, coupled with our inability to critically evaluate matters and correct the course of things, led to inadequate and insufficient funding of higher education. There was also no national strategy for higher education assumed and participated by public and private stakeholders that could inspire and act as a model for continued organized action independent from political cycles.
In the 1980s and the 1990s, during the economic euphoria that followed our joining the EEC, there was unregulated proliferation of private universities, which, with some exceptions, was not a success. The scientific and cultural affirmation of our country in the context of our European integration required a different policy involving the selection and development of knowledge-producing universities (research universities) able to assert themselves internationally and compete for the best students, lecturers and researchers, becoming attractive when competing for funds essential for international level quality research. However, the opposite happened, with the erratic proliferation of initiatives, irrational use of resources, mismatch between educational offers and the country’s development needs, which was particularly unfortunate in a country of scarce resources and a paramount need to recover from decades of underdevelopment.
It was a missed opportunity.
There was also a prevailing idea among some Portuguese intelligentsia that was perceived as irrefutable evidence: universities were unable of reforming themselves, so it was desirable to have new ones emerging free from the original sin, usually invoked as corporatism, dissociation from social and economic reality, old-fashioned management, and inbreeding.
Other initiatives taking place in the last decade were praiseworthy, such as the setting up of Associated Laboratories which due to their increased autonomy in the management of human resources, contributed to the increase of the country’s scientific output. The examples are well-known and are overwhelmingly a success story, encouraging different dynamics and managing human and material resources more rationally and flexibly, in a way that could never be implemented in structures associated with the state. In the Faculty of Medicine, the development of the Institute of Molecular Medicine from the Faculty’s Research Centres that had been evaluated “Excellent” or “Very Good” by the International Committee was an admirable initiative that we actively supported from a logistic and financial viewpoint, in the hope of having our biomedical science upgraded, which was successfully accomplished, and to foster the growing interaction between research and teaching, which illustrates the Faculty’s clear commitment to Science.
This has clearly been achieved!!
Accordingly, when we proposed the creation of the Lisbon Academic Medical Centre in 2009, we insisted that the Institute of Molecular Medicine joined the consortium involving the Faculty and Santa Maria Hospital/Northern Lisbon Hospital Centre, hoping it would become a paradigm of the new organizational model of academic medicine based on research, innovation and qualification of professional practice in a hospital of reference.
This was an example of our commitment to a New Policy for the university, encompassing the essential restructuring of the university system, which I always believed to be a prerequisite for the survival of public universities, the safeguarding of essential values such as culture, the creation of knowledge through scientific research, its dissemination in the social and economic fabric, which I synthesized in the sentence “we need fewer and better universities”, ensuring that universities are recognised for their scientific output and educational quality, thus attracting researchers and students.
The voice of the institutions was crucial and the expression of university autonomy, which must be enhanced and not stifled. The Classical and Technical Universities of Lisbon challenged the evidence of the inability to change and in an independent exercise of freedom and high sense of public responsibility, embodied the most important reform in public higher education, at least in Lisbon, held in recent years and started a new cycle for the affirmation and progress of the university.
The new University of Lisbon that we are now celebrating by bringing together and enhancing skills that already existed but which, by being disperse, lost their potential and effectiveness, was a national priority. It will contribute to the affirmation of the country due to the quality of its scientific output, research and education, and will certainly occupy a top position among leading European universities.
More than mere organic growth through the merger or adding up of Schools and Institutes, we need smart and determined actions that potentiate synergies, strengthen the existing scientific and cultural critical mass, and create an institutional ecology that fosters research, the rationalisation of human and material resources and that may result in a push for renewal.
It is in this context and due to its achievements in recent years that the Faculty can play a relevant role in the success of the University of Lisbon. The collaboration with the Higher Technical Institute (IST) regarding the Integrated Master Degree in Biomedical Engineering, a successful experiment that has celebrated its tenth anniversary, other Master and Advanced Training projects in Biotechnology, the several joint research projects with IST and other Schools of the University, the association of institutes and researchers from other schools with the Faculty and the IMM, place us in a unique position to develop a major research and teaching area in the fields of Life and Health Sciences, and thus contribute to this decade’s new scientific challenge: the convergence of Life Sciences with Physical Sciences and Engineering. The involvement of the HSM as an institution offering a differentiated quality service to the national community is a mainstay not only for the success of the Faculty and the Academic Centre, but also for the creation of a new drive at the University to implement research projects and apply diagnostic and therapeutic innovation in Clinical Medicine and broad intervention in the field of Health.
The advantage is not to increase student numbers, which is important but not decisive, nor to expand out of proportion in detriment of other institutions. Rather, the benefit is to recreate a university that can meet the new challenges of scientific knowledge and thus contribute more effectively to affirm Portugal and foster its cultural, scientific, economic, and social development.
Achieving this objective is not only a need, but a duty that the future imposes on us. The country needs major science and education institutions and this desideratum must be a priority.
The Faculty of Medicine and the Lisbon Academic Medical Centre will know how to creatively participate in this new project, and through action and cooperation with other Schools and Research Institutes, how to become a real centre of excellence in the field of Life and Health Sciences, thus contributing to the national and international assertion of the new University of Lisbon.
Director of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon
The recent governmental approval of the Statutes of the new University of Lisbon, the election of the representatives to the General Council and the new University Senate and the choice of the future Rector will bring to a close a remarkable and outstanding time for Portuguese Universities and for the University of Lisbon.
This is happening at difficult times for Portuguese society, and in that aspect it is a remarkable proof of the vitality of institutions, of their culture and creative energy, and of their ability to face new challenges.
Some time ago, in an article published in the daily press, I pointed out that this change is occurring at an historical moment when the public university system is experiencing one of the most financially testing times in its history.
There are several reasons for this. The global financial crisis that swept states and institutions in Europe and the US is indeed one of the reasons, but there is another one, perhaps too ideological, which is endogenous and the result of a less realistic vision of the objectives of higher education. This fact, coupled with our inability to critically evaluate matters and correct the course of things, led to inadequate and insufficient funding of higher education. There was also no national strategy for higher education assumed and participated by public and private stakeholders that could inspire and act as a model for continued organized action independent from political cycles.
In the 1980s and the 1990s, during the economic euphoria that followed our joining the EEC, there was unregulated proliferation of private universities, which, with some exceptions, was not a success. The scientific and cultural affirmation of our country in the context of our European integration required a different policy involving the selection and development of knowledge-producing universities (research universities) able to assert themselves internationally and compete for the best students, lecturers and researchers, becoming attractive when competing for funds essential for international level quality research. However, the opposite happened, with the erratic proliferation of initiatives, irrational use of resources, mismatch between educational offers and the country’s development needs, which was particularly unfortunate in a country of scarce resources and a paramount need to recover from decades of underdevelopment.
It was a missed opportunity.
There was also a prevailing idea among some Portuguese intelligentsia that was perceived as irrefutable evidence: universities were unable of reforming themselves, so it was desirable to have new ones emerging free from the original sin, usually invoked as corporatism, dissociation from social and economic reality, old-fashioned management, and inbreeding.
Other initiatives taking place in the last decade were praiseworthy, such as the setting up of Associated Laboratories which due to their increased autonomy in the management of human resources, contributed to the increase of the country’s scientific output. The examples are well-known and are overwhelmingly a success story, encouraging different dynamics and managing human and material resources more rationally and flexibly, in a way that could never be implemented in structures associated with the state. In the Faculty of Medicine, the development of the Institute of Molecular Medicine from the Faculty’s Research Centres that had been evaluated “Excellent” or “Very Good” by the International Committee was an admirable initiative that we actively supported from a logistic and financial viewpoint, in the hope of having our biomedical science upgraded, which was successfully accomplished, and to foster the growing interaction between research and teaching, which illustrates the Faculty’s clear commitment to Science.
This has clearly been achieved!!
Accordingly, when we proposed the creation of the Lisbon Academic Medical Centre in 2009, we insisted that the Institute of Molecular Medicine joined the consortium involving the Faculty and Santa Maria Hospital/Northern Lisbon Hospital Centre, hoping it would become a paradigm of the new organizational model of academic medicine based on research, innovation and qualification of professional practice in a hospital of reference.
This was an example of our commitment to a New Policy for the university, encompassing the essential restructuring of the university system, which I always believed to be a prerequisite for the survival of public universities, the safeguarding of essential values such as culture, the creation of knowledge through scientific research, its dissemination in the social and economic fabric, which I synthesized in the sentence “we need fewer and better universities”, ensuring that universities are recognised for their scientific output and educational quality, thus attracting researchers and students.
The voice of the institutions was crucial and the expression of university autonomy, which must be enhanced and not stifled. The Classical and Technical Universities of Lisbon challenged the evidence of the inability to change and in an independent exercise of freedom and high sense of public responsibility, embodied the most important reform in public higher education, at least in Lisbon, held in recent years and started a new cycle for the affirmation and progress of the university.
The new University of Lisbon that we are now celebrating by bringing together and enhancing skills that already existed but which, by being disperse, lost their potential and effectiveness, was a national priority. It will contribute to the affirmation of the country due to the quality of its scientific output, research and education, and will certainly occupy a top position among leading European universities.
More than mere organic growth through the merger or adding up of Schools and Institutes, we need smart and determined actions that potentiate synergies, strengthen the existing scientific and cultural critical mass, and create an institutional ecology that fosters research, the rationalisation of human and material resources and that may result in a push for renewal.
It is in this context and due to its achievements in recent years that the Faculty can play a relevant role in the success of the University of Lisbon. The collaboration with the Higher Technical Institute (IST) regarding the Integrated Master Degree in Biomedical Engineering, a successful experiment that has celebrated its tenth anniversary, other Master and Advanced Training projects in Biotechnology, the several joint research projects with IST and other Schools of the University, the association of institutes and researchers from other schools with the Faculty and the IMM, place us in a unique position to develop a major research and teaching area in the fields of Life and Health Sciences, and thus contribute to this decade’s new scientific challenge: the convergence of Life Sciences with Physical Sciences and Engineering. The involvement of the HSM as an institution offering a differentiated quality service to the national community is a mainstay not only for the success of the Faculty and the Academic Centre, but also for the creation of a new drive at the University to implement research projects and apply diagnostic and therapeutic innovation in Clinical Medicine and broad intervention in the field of Health.
The advantage is not to increase student numbers, which is important but not decisive, nor to expand out of proportion in detriment of other institutions. Rather, the benefit is to recreate a university that can meet the new challenges of scientific knowledge and thus contribute more effectively to affirm Portugal and foster its cultural, scientific, economic, and social development.
Achieving this objective is not only a need, but a duty that the future imposes on us. The country needs major science and education institutions and this desideratum must be a priority.
The Faculty of Medicine and the Lisbon Academic Medical Centre will know how to creatively participate in this new project, and through action and cooperation with other Schools and Research Institutes, how to become a real centre of excellence in the field of Life and Health Sciences, thus contributing to the national and international assertion of the new University of Lisbon.
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