UAlg awards PhD Honoris Causa to Fernando Santos Pessoa and José d’Encarnação

The University of the Algarve (UAlg) will award an honorary doctorate to José d’Encarnação in the field of Heritage Studies, on the initiative of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (FCHS), having received unanimous approval; and to Fernando José dos Santos Pessoa the honorary title of Doctor Honoris Causa in Marine, Earth and Environmental Sciences, specialising in Environmental Sciences and Technologies, on the initiative of the Faculty of Science and Technology (FCT), also unanimously. 

José d’Encarnação, a retired professor of history and archaeology at the University of Coimbra, was born in São Brás de Alportel in 1944.

A specialist in epigraphy, he was the first Portuguese member admitted to the Association Internationale d'Épigraphie Grecque et Latine in 1977. He defended his doctoral thesis in 1984 on Roman inscriptions in southern Portugal.

As a teacher, graduate of Museology, and journalist, he has sought to highlight the importance of cultural heritage, a subject he taught and the main theme of his chronicles, collected in Retalhos (S. Brás de Alportel, 2018) and Pelo Barrocal Algarvio (Lisbon, 2021), for example. He is a member of several organizations, including the Lisbon Academy of Sciences (full member), the Portuguese Academy of History (academic of merit), the Association of Portuguese Archaeologists (1970), the Portuguese Association of Museology (1972), the German Archaeological Institute (1986), and the Royal Academy of History in Madrid (1999).

He holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Poitiers (2001). In 2015, he was awarded the insignia of cultural merit by the municipality of São Brás.

He was part of the team that founded SBA Revista de Cultura, a biannual journal, in 2020, and he is its editor. He regularly contributes to the Annals of the Municipality of Faro and Notícias de São Brás. A resident of Cascais since age four, he has never lost his connection to the Algarve.

Fernando José Santos Pessoa was born in 1937. He graduated from the Higher Institute of Agronomy with a degree in Forestry Engineering in 1965, followed by a degree in Landscape Architecture in 1968. Throughout his career, he held a number of prominent positions in spatial planning, landscape architecture, and nature conservation. He began his professional career as a forest administrator in Funchal and Porto Santo, and was in charge of the Madeira Botanical Garden from 1971 to 1974. In the 1960s, he also joined the team led by architect Rafael Botelho that was responsible for drawing up the first Municipal Master Plan for Funchal in 1968. He also participated in drafting the Madeira Spatial Planning Plan in 1974, collaborating with architect Filipe Mário Lopes. Subsequently, he served as Chief of Staff to Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles, distinguishing himself as the founder and first president of the SNPRPP. He introduced new concepts related to conservation and land management in Portugal, such as natural parks, protected landscapes, and ecomuseums. At an international level, he served on the board of the European Federation of National and Regional Parks. His other institutional responsibilities included coordinating the Working Group for the Study of Floods in the Lisbon Region in 1984 and chairing the Algarve Working Group of the Institute for Nature Conservation and Biodiversity (ICNB).

In academia, he has held various visiting assistant professor posts at institutions including the Institute of New Professions, the University of Évora, the Portuguese Catholic University, and the New University of Lisbon, where he taught postgraduate modules. At the University of the Algarve, he played a pivotal role in establishing and managing the Bachelor's Degree in Landscape Architecture in 1998.

Alongside his academic and institutional work, he has built an extensive freelance career, participating in numerous projects, conferences and symposia in Portugal and abroad. Throughout his career, he has published around twenty books on topics related to landscape, territory, and nature conservation.

The session will be broadcast online on UAlg's YouTube channel and Facebook page.

Register to attend the ceremony aqui. 

Program

3:00 pm

Reception of guests

3:30 pm 

Academic procession

Rector's Speech

Laudatio given by  João Pedro Bernardes

Imposition of doctoral insignia

Speech of the new doctor José d´Encarnação

Musical moment by Nelson Conceição

Laudatio given by João Guerreiro

IImposition of doctoral insignia

Speech of the new doctor Fernando Santos Pessoa

Musical moment by Nelson Conceição

Closing ceremony

Academic procession

5:00 pm

Cocktail