Mara de Sousa Freitas takes office as director of the Institute of Bioethics and Jorge Santos Alves renews his term as coordinator of the Institute of Asian Studies
Mara de Sousa Freitas, invited assistant professor at Universidade Católica Portuguesa, took office on November 9 as director of the Institute of Bioethics. In the same ceremony, Jorge Santos Alves, assistant professor of the Faculty of Human Sciences, renewed his term as coordinator of the Institute of Asian Studies - previously known as the Institute of Oriental Studies.
On this occasion, Isabel Capeloa Gil, President of Universidade Católica Portuguesa, explained that "the Institute of Asian Studies and the Institute of Bioethics are matrix and mission units of the University." The former "was created to strengthen and recognize the work and the very fruitful connection that UCP has, since the 1970s, to the territory of Macau," particularly "to develop and deepen the study on the projection and the relationship of Portugal with other parts of the world, especially Asia."
The Rector also highlighted the importance of the "work that has been developed by the institute, for its hermeneutic dimension of deepening what are the sources, the knowledge about the Portuguese past, but above all for a better understanding of the present."
About the Institute of Bioethics, which was integrated into the Católica Medical School in 2021, Isabel Capeloa Gil said that "it is a unit that began in Porto and is linked to one of the university's essential missions, which is to defend the dignity of the person. She also highlighted the tradition and pioneering spirit of this institute: "we were the first in Portugal to advance in this area, with a chair in Bioethics."
To those responsible for the appointment, Mara de Sousa Freitas thanked "for the great challenge, for the high confidence, and for the hope." The new director of the Institute of Bioethics, and member of the Ethics Committee for Health, stressed: "Bioethics has been an academic and scientific path, but especially a mission, a way of being. From early on, ethics chose me in every care situation as a nurse, in the search for answers to the ethical problems of clinical contexts, of life, of my life and those of others, as well as in the multiple situations where values, ethics and politics lacked common denominators."
Jorge Santos Alves said he faces "with great joy, but also with great responsibility" the renewal of the position of coordinator of the Institute of Asian Studies. The professor and researcher took on the mission of "putting Asian studies and Asia in the spotlight, through links to the community, to companies, to institutions and to universities", highlighting the Master in Asian Studies, taught in English, and activities such as a Summer School and a Winter School dedicated to this topic.