Prof. Nuno Crato, head of the Ministry of Education and Science of Portugal, visited the University of Macau’s (UM) new campus on 14 April. Prof. Crato noted the close collaborations between UM and universities in Portugal and expressed his hope to see closer collaborations between Macao and Portugal in education and scientific research in the future.
Prof. Crato visited the new campus in the company of Dr. Vítor Sereno, consul-general of Portugal in Macao and Hong Kong. They were warmly received by UM Rector Prof. Wei Zhao, Vice Rector (Research) Prof. Rui Martins, as well as Portuguese-speaking faculty members and students from the Faculty of Law, Faculty of Arts and Humanities’s Department of Portuguese, Faculty of Social Sciences’s Department of History, and Faculty of Science and Technology’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Rector Wei Zhao presented the new campus master plan and shared future development objectives, including the “4-in-1” model of education as well as the residential college system and its implementation progress. Vice Rector Rui Martins updated the delegation on the latest developments of Portuguese education at UM. Prof. Martins noted that UM has the largest Portuguese department in Asia, enjoys a close relationship with Portugal, sends over 40 students to study Portuguese at the Universities of Lisbon, University of Coimbra, and University of Minho under exchange programmes every year, and participates and organises various activities with Portuguese-speaking universities, including the annual meetings of the Association of Portuguese Speaking Universities (AULP), in 1998, 2003, 2006 and 2010, as well as the upcoming 24th Annual Meeting of AULP to be held this year between 15 September and 17 September. In addition, the Department of Portuguese also organises different language and poetry competitions, as well as Portuguese exchange activities in collaboration with Beijing Foreign Studies University and other Asian universities.
Prof. Crato highly praised UM’s achievements in Portuguese education. He noted the close collaborations between UM and Portuguese universities and said that UM should continue to play a positive role in the future, in terms of collaborations with Portuguese universities.
Prof. Crato also visited the Faculty of Science and Technology’s labs on the new campus, in particular the robotics lab, to know more about UM’s research developments.
Finally, Rector Wei Zhao presented to Prof. Nuno Crato an album in commemoration of the inauguration of UM’s new campus, as well as one of the most important research works of the Department of Portuguese, the “Thematic Dictionary of Macau – DITEMA”, which is a collection of four volumes in Portuguese, developed between 1998 and 2012.Should you have any inquiries about the press release, please feel free to contact Ms. Albee Lei and Ms. Kristy Fok at（853）8397 4323 or prs.media@um.edu.mo or visit UM webpage www.umac.mo.
