On 12 January, at 11am, the exhibition "Sustainable and Responsible Tourism in Braga: Sustainable Responses to Covid-19" opened to the public.

The work organised by the second year class of the Degree in Tourism, from the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences, is part of the subject: Markets and International Tourism.

The event counted with the presence of Miguel Melo Bandeira, Councillor for the Environment of the City Council of Braga, who also presented the Sacro Montes project between the City Councils of Braga and Guimarães.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Universidade Católica Portuguesa recognises its responsibility to promote solidarity and to structure volunteering and the spirit of service in the context of its academic community. Likewise, knowing itself to be an integral part of the larger community that surrounds it, UCP assumes the commitment to add value to organizations and initiatives of recognized social interest, whose vision is aligned with the mission of UCP: to promote the integral formation of the person, oriented towards the global reality, based on the principles of truth and respect for people and the environment.

In this spirit, the Universidade Católica Portuguesa is once again organising a national Christmas Solidarity Campaign, until December 17. In Braga, the campaign supports the Food Bank Against Hunger (NGO) of Braga.

This institution's mission is to fight against waste by recovering surpluses and taking them to those in need.

The campaign encourages donations of food items such as milk, biscuits, olive oil, oil, rice, beans, tuna, sausages, pasta, sugar and cereals.

Leave your donation at the entrance of the Camões Campus and the Faculty Square buildings.

On October 25 and 26, 2021, the first on-site meeting of the international team of the project "Restart for Education in a Digital Era through Project-based E-learning" (RESTART 4 EDU) was held in Liège (Belgium).

The visit brought together Professors Ângela Sá Azevedo, Íris Oliveira and Paulo Dias, from Universidade Católica Portuguesa with professors from Universitatea Ovidus din Constanta (Romania), Eskisehir Osmangazi Universitesi (Turkey) and Initiatives pour Une Formation Efficace ASBL (Belgium), so that they could take joint decisions and agree on the next stages of work.

The RESTART 4 EDU project, funded by the Erasmus + programme, has pursued activities through remote and on-site meetings and will include a training course on Project-Based Learning (PBL) for higher education professors from the various countries involved, research on knowledge and effectiveness of the training experience, as well as an open-access handbook on the use of this methodology in higher education.

The next on-site meeting of RESTART 4 EDU will take place at the Braga Regional Centre in April 2022.

For more information about the project, check the link.

João Duque, Pro-Rector of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa (UCP) and President of the Braga Regional Centre (CRB), received this Thursday, 15 September, the "Árvore da Vida - Padre Manuel Antunes" Award, given by the Catholic Church, at the Vita Auditorium, Braga, in recognition of his contribution in the field of Theology.

João Loureiro, full professor of the Faculty of Law of Coimbra University, presented the session and highlighted the Pro-Rector of UCP as a crusader between tradition and innovation, and between memory and future, "capable of revisiting classic themes, but also of confronting the challenges of cyberculture, with its neo-gnostic dimensions and the apocalyptic of the post-human".

As the first theologian awarded in this category, João Duque recognised this prize as "a style of theology that does not limit itself to reflecting the internal life of the church", but that "renders a service to the relationship of Europe with itself and with others, in the search for a common world": "And there is no better context for this work than the University, whether Catholic or not".

The honoree has predominantly given voice to university theology, without denying the importance of the Christian and ecclesial tradition. "I have above all two fundamental objectives: to make the theological voice heard in the concert of knowledge and cultural achievements; and to make the voice of knowledge and cultures heard within the theological voice," said the President of the CRB.

The award was presented by the President of the Episcopal Commission for Culture, Cultural Goods and Social Communications, Bishop João Lavrador, and is composed of a sculpture that symbolises the "Árvore da Vida ", by Alberto Carneiro, and 2500 euros, sponsored by the Fundação Ilídio Pinho.

The theologian and professor João Manuel Duque, Pro-Rector of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa (UCP), and President of the Braga Regional Centre, will receive the Árvore da Vida - Padre Manuel Antunes Award, on September 15, at Espaço Vita, in Braga.

The Pro-Rector is also a professor at the Faculty of Theology and an integrated researcher at the Research Centre for Theology and Religious Studies, UCP.

His distinction was announced in November 2021 and the award's jury declared it considered him as "a border-crosser" between theology and philosophy, knowledge and art, especially music, and highlighted his "reiterated reflection in the field", translated into several publications and teaching at the UCP School of Arts, in Porto.

The Pro-Rector stated, at the time of the announcement, that the prize is a "valorisation" of theology and "the role of the work of theology in the relationship with the exterior of the Church, with the world in general and with culture in particular".

The Árvore da Vida - Padre Manuel Antunes Award, established to highlight a path or work that reflects humanism and Christian experience, is sponsored by the Fundação Ilídio Pinho. In 2021, the jury was chaired by D. João Lavrador, president of the Episcopal Commission for Culture, Cultural Assets and Social Communications, and composed by Guilherme d'Oliveira Martins, José Carlos Seabra Pereira, P. Júlio Trigueiros, and Maria Teresa Dias Furtado.

"Philosophy for the New Century" is the new Postgraduate Course of the Braga Regional Centre (CRB), Universidade Católica, designed for the employees of the dst Group - one of the largest construction and engineering groups in the north of the country. More than 500 staff members will attend the online training, which includes the study of contemporary thinkers and themes such as epistemology, spirituality, anthropology, ethics, politics, art and culture.

The three-year course begins on October 6, but in 2020 the CRB had already launched a philosophy course for 318 dst workers. An initiative that for João Duque, Pro-Rector of UCP and President of the regional centre, is not a traditional teaching, but "an encounter between two worlds that usually do not meet": the business and the philosophical. "That is what is challenging about this project", he stated at the launching conference of the Post-Graduation, which took place on 28 September, in Braga.

According to Carlos Morais, responsible for coordinating the course, philosophy is important in the business world because it provides the practice of questioning, reflection, critical analysis, anticipation of what others have not yet seen, and creativity. "A mind enlightened by philosophical reflection will provide each of us with the competence to see deeper and further," he asserted.

Therefore the Post-Graduate programme of the CRB seeks to "develop knowledge, attitudes, know-how, ways of being, which will lead the dstgroup staff to educate their critical and creative spirit" explained José Lopes, Director of the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences of the UCP.

That is why José Teixeira, President of the Board of Directors of dstgroup, considers that the bet on the philosophical training of the workers is advantageous both for those who attend it and for the company itself. "If our workers don't think, we don't exist," he stated.

"If a company does not have the tools and time to think, it will live without freedom, hostage to those who think. Others will think for us and we will be servants and not free men and women," he said, stressing that "ignorance in companies is worse than misery".

Nuno Jorge Cardona Fazenda de Almeida, professor at the Braga Regional Centre, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, was appointed, by Prime Minister António Costa, to the position of Secretary of State for Tourism, Commerce and Services, on the past 29th of November.

With a degree in Tourism, Master in Management and Environmental Policies and a PhD in Regional and Urban Planning, Nuno Fazenda not only works in the area of Higher Education, but also participates in the Commissions of Economy, Public Works, Planning and Housing; of Education and Science; of Environment and Energy and in the Sub-Commission for the Monitoring of European Funds and of the PRR. He is also a Member of Parliament - XV Legislature and an Expert in the World Centre of Excellence for Destinations.

He will take office as Secretary of State on 2 December, at 12:00 p.m., at Palácio de Belém.