Message from the President
The School of Architecture, Art and Design (EAAD) is one of the most recent and singular Schools of the University of Minho, which began to take its first steps twenty-eight years ago, when Order RT-53/96 was published on 31 October 1996, appointing the Installation Committee for the Degree in Architecture and the School of Architecture.
Since then it has been twenty-eight intense years, a rich and diverse journey in which, with the effort and dedication of its entire community, EAAD has been able to find its way and assert itself in a complex context, fulfilling its mission of generating, disseminating and applying advanced knowledge in the fields of Architecture, Art and Design, promoting higher education and contributing to the development of a model of society based on humanist principles, with Knowledge, Creativity and Innovation as factors of sustainable development and well-being. We recognise the importance of sustainability in defining institutional policies, and we intend to take an active role in promoting environmental responsibility and EAAD's sustainability and efficiency in the use of its resources.
We want the action programme for the three-year period 2025-2027 to be a charter of values and an indelible commitment that transcends individual and temporal interests and is based on solid and widely shared ethical principles. We will not compromise on the fulfilment of the principles and values of diversity and multiculturalism, nor on the commitment to contribute to the exercise of active, critical and responsible citizenship and to expressions of inclusion and equity.
Understanding the action programme as a collective pact, capable of guiding the governance and organisation of the EAAD, we have identified a dozen lines of action with which we propose to contribute to a better school: teaching; research, transfer and enhancement of knowledge; culture and society; people, careers and quality of life; ethics, diversity, inclusion and citizenship; sustainability; governance; infrastructures; communication, information and dissemination; institutional affairs.
Within this framework, EAAD should continue to guarantee high quality higher education, promoting teaching methodologies that encourage the active role of the student community in learning processes and testing integrated approaches that reinforce the relevance of EAAD and its disciplinary areas for thinking, debating, representing and projecting the challenges of contemporaneity. To this end, we intend to valorise the relationship with the local social, cultural and professional context and continue to explore the offer of short, non-degree courses, facilitating lifelong learning contexts and responding to the concrete needs of society and the business community.
It is important to strengthen our links with alumni and with the recently formed Architecture, Design and Arts Student Union at the University of Minho, and we aim to expand the third cycle offer to new scientific areas. We want the research dynamics of Lab2PT - Laboratory of Landscapes, Heritage and Territory and IN2PAST - Associated Laboratory for Research and Innovation in Heritage, Arts, Sustainability and Territory to foster effective synergies with teaching and contribute to the valorisation and transfer of knowledge.
We want EAAD to be a place for meaningful encounters and personal and collective development, encouraging spaces for dialogue, collaboration and co-creation. We want to continue to contribute to the knowledge, defence and dissemination of heritage and to promote activities that enable access to and enjoyment of cultural goods. To this end, we intend to raise the profile of EAAD's regular liaison with various cultural organisations and events, and promote closer collaboration with municipalities and cultural institutions and associations.
We will be attentive to the training and development needs of the technical, administrative and management staff, and we must take into account the challenges, opportunities and specificities of integrating career researchers into the EAAD.
Aware of the responsibilities that fall on our shoulders, we believe that, with the collaboration of all of you, we can dare to improve EAAD, affirming Architecture, Art and Design.
Guimarães, November 6, 2024
Paulo Jorge de Sousa Cruz
Presidency Team
President
Vice-Presidents
