The Algarve and the city of Faro they have been divorced from the University and are not helping the institution in its attempt to attract Portuguese and foreign students. This is one of the messages that the rector of the University of the Algarve (UAlg) João Guerreiro leaves in the final stretch of his second and last term in office, warning that it is essential that the Algarve capital assumes its university facet once and for all.
«The Algarve is a tourist region, which often looks suspiciously at the work that the University does and there has been no warm reception. And that would be fundamental. If the city of Faro if it assumes itself as a university student, if it creates infrastructures that can be pleasant from the point of view of the students' stay – bicycle paths, water sports – this greatly increases the university's attractiveness», considered João Guerreiro.
In an interview evaluating his eight years as rector, on the radio program “Impressions”, jointly promoted by the Sul Informação and by Rádio Universitária do Algarve RUA FM (102,7 FM), João Guerreiro defended a greater involvement of the living forces of the Algarve with the only public Higher Education institution in the region.
«The university is not a microcosm, autonomous and not conditioned by its surroundings. It is conditioned and strongly driven by the environment», he defended, giving the example of cities such as Porto or Barcelona, which, by investing in the university city, are today «very dynamic focal points of attraction for the Erasmus program».
«The University's ability to attract national and international students has to do with the conditions that the region provides, the context conditions. It has not been easy!” he added.
An increasing attraction of international students, in order to compensate for a decrease in national candidates for Higher Education in Portugal, and a critical mass that is not abundant, in the area of university implantation, was one of the clear bets of the rectory teams led by John the Warrior.
In recent years, the number of international students arriving at UAlg, to spend one or more semesters here, under programs such as Erasmus, Erasmus Mundus or protocols, has been increasing considerably.
Revealing that, when he took office, the number of students coming from abroad should not exceed two hundred per year, the still president of UAlg said that this year, around 500 international students are expected, around 50 for each of the semesters from at least XNUMX countries. The aim is to stabilize the number of exchanges “at around two thousand per year”.
Medicine course was a victory, but there are things to be done
In conversation with the Sul Informação and with RUA FM, the still dean of UAlg admitted that one of the high points of his mandate was the opening of the Integrated Masters in Medicine, which allowed UAlg not only to become the only university in the South of the Tagus to offer this course, but also «develop the entire area of Biomedical Sciences».
A process that ended in João Guerreiro's first term, but which was "launched by Adriano Pimpão", he highlighted.
At the time of farewell, João Guerreiro does not hide the satisfaction of solving an issue related to this course and others related to it: the construction of a building for the Faculty of Medicine, which he guarantees.
In spite of that, João Guerreiro admitted that there were things he would have liked to do and he couldn't. From the outset, «no longer follow the structuring of the scientific research area», a work that has been carried out at UAlg and which motivated the affiliation of several researchers in research centers in other countries.
“With this movement, we gained research capacity and, above all, scientific relationships with other communities. For two years now, we have been calling these teachers again, to create structured areas of scientific research. I would very much like to do this until the end of the term, but everything will not be done, despite a lot of being done», he said.
João Guerreiro also regretted “he was not able to place the Penha Campus in Gambelas”. "It's not so much to do with financial issues, which there are also, but, above all, with the academic community meeting", he said, confessing that, with the current financial situation of UAlg, this plan will be "extremely complicated", even if the future rector wants to follow up.
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