
Paulo Dias, President of the Braga Regional Center of the Portuguese Catholic University (UCP), and the professors of the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences (FFCS) Ana Salazar, Catarina Vieira da Silva, José Manuel Lopes, SJ, and Maria José Ferreira Lopes represented the Center for Philosophical and Humanistic Studies (CEFH) at the multitudinous Hope 25 International Congress - "The Jesuit University in the 21st Century: A Project of Hope for the World", which took place between June 4 and 6, 2025, at the Universidad Loyola in Seville, Spain.
This initiative, organized by Universidad Loyola Andalucía within the framework of the International Association of Jesuit Universities (IAJU), the Kircher Network - Jesuit Higher Education in Europe and the Near East, and UNIJES - Universidades Jesuitas de España, brought together researchers from Jesuit universities in 32 countries around the world, who shared more than 300 scientific contributions focused on the hope of facing the current global crises through research and education.
With this in mind, FFCS researchers presented the results of their working groups, focused on the Identity and Mission of Jesuit Universities, with the aim of publishing them. Namely:
“Ignatian identity and practices: perceptions of the academic community at FFCS” (Ana Salazar, Maria José Ferreira Lopes, Daniela Monteiro, José Miguel Vilaça); “Teaching for Care: Ignatian Pedagogy, Vulnerability, and Aging” (Catarina Vieira da Silva, Artur Galvão, Bruno Nobre SJ, José Manuel Lopes SJ); "Universities as Communities of Practice: A Metaphor for Institutions of Hope and Future? “ (Paulo Dias, Artur Galvão, Catarina Vieira da Silva, José Manuel Lopes SJ, Simone Petrella); ”The cathartic dimension of Literature in the educational mission of the Society of Jesus" (Maria José Ferreira Lopes, Ana Paula Pinto, José Manuel Lopes SJ, João Carlos Onofre Pinto SJ).