The initiative features Manuela Veloso, Carlos Fiolhais, and Pedro Abrunhosa
From October 12 to 16, the Portuguese Catholic University will host Creativity Week in Braga, which will explore the theme of creativity and its relationship to artificial intelligence, conflict resolution, and sustainability.
Over the course of five days, the program for this international initiative will include lectures, workshops, scientific debates, roundtables, and cultural events at various locations throughout the city. It will feature presentations by experts such as Manuela Veloso, Carlos Fiolhais, Manuela Pintado, Ana Margarida Abrantes, Dustin Stokes, and Pierre Cassou-Noguès, as well as Ukraine’s ambassador, Maryna Mykhailenko. There will also be a Science Café dedicated to the theme “What is the power of creativity?”, featuring Isabel Capeloa Gil, Rector of Católica University; Sergia Adamo, a professor at the University of Trieste; and musician Pedro Abrunhosa.
By fostering collaboration and interdisciplinary dialogue among Philosophy, Art, Science, and Technology, Creativity Week aims to help address the challenges of the 21st century by reflecting on the role of creativity as a driving force behind innovation, sustainability, social transformation, and entrepreneurship.
Held as part of the European university alliance Transform4Europe (T4EU), Creativity Week will bring together students, researchers, faculty, and university staff from across the T4EU community, as well as artists, stakeholders, and representatives from the business world.
“Creativity Week will bring together in Braga, at the Catholic University of Portugal, approximately 80 students and young researchers from 15 European and international universities to reflect together on the theme of creativity from a philosophical and interdisciplinary perspective. This is a unique opportunity to explore creativity as a human characteristic. It is an initiative of Transform4Europe, an alliance of European universities that includes, in addition to the Portuguese Catholic University, nine other universities from various countries and one partner university in Ukraine, the University of Mariupol. “Participation in this event will strengthen our commitment to building a common Europe,” emphasizes the Director of the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences at the Catholic University, Fr. Bruno Nobre.
“Sometimes we talk about creativity as if it were a capacity reserved for the arts or for certain particularly imaginative people. One of the goals of this Creativity Week is to show precisely that creativity is also necessary in science, research, technology, and the way we tackle new problems. In this way, we want to reflect on creativity and ask where and how it occurs, what makes it possible, and why it is so important for us to innovate and flourish as a civilization—to overcome the obstacles for which we still have no answers,” adds professor and researcher Ricardo Barroso Batista, a member of the event’s organizing committee.
