On 23 February, FCSH hosted the closing session of the VINCULUM project, coordinated by Maria de Lurdes Rosa, which was attended by the Rector of NOVA University Lisbon, Paulo Pereira, the Director of the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences, Alexandra Curvelo, and the Director of IHC, Luís Trindade. Vítor Cardoso (Instituto Superior Técnico) and Henrique Leitão (Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon, FCUL), both grantees of the European Research Council (ERC), were the guest speakers.

Vítor Cardoso, professor of physics and Director of the Centre of Gravity at the Niels Bohr Institute (Denmark), speaking from Barcelona, began by introducing himself and mentioning that he ‘thinks about big questions’ such as ‘cosmic singularities, stars, black holes and, often, the nature of time’, anticipating the question ‘what is the point of contact with someone who studies entailed estates, inheritances and family businesses’? The most immediate answer to this contact with Maria de Lurdes Rosa and VINCULUM is curiosity, adding that he ‘wants to understand how the universe works — in terms of universal laws that are usually described mathematically — to learn, predict and be more as a person’, while the human sciences want to understand human laws, ‘the patterns that guide us and make us behave differently in different situations and understand [like him] the details of a certain function, how the system works’. Therefore, ‘on a scientific level, everything unites us’. Wanting to know more is one of the great privileges of enjoying an ERC grant, which allows you to ‘be in touch with the most fascinating research that exists,’ often without immediate applications. Another point of contact is the ‘desire to do well, to leave a legacy that comes from the project itself,’ clarifying that everyone wants to do their job well, but not everyone is concerned with ‘the less tangible, more aesthetic, more sublime, and more transformative and lasting legacy.’

Henrique Leitão, Director of the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at FCUL and researcher at the Interuniversity Centre for the History of Science and Technology, took this opportunity to give a historical overview of the characteristics of the ERC funding system, that ‘aims to bring about transformation in institutions’. He attributed the programme’s success to the fact that “what was a system for funding high-level science and academic work has become the most robust and consensual system for recognising academic quality in Europe; and has become, for many people and institutions, the most powerful lever for institutional transformation, to such an extent that what was an individual funding system has also become a system for evaluating institutions”. He also highlighted the distinctive nature of the ERC in that it seeks to ‘discover scientific talent, with people who have the ability to make a difference, in the hope that by supporting these people with complete freedom (…) , this will bring about change in institutions.’ Furthermore, unlike other funding systems, this one is very generous, ‘it identifies the person who is eligible to receive [the grant]’ and ‘protects the grantee’, since those who win an ERC grant are protected in three ways: by the generous payment of overheads to the institution, ‘because the grantee is scientifically accountable only to Brussels and because the grant is completely mobile’. ‘The combination of a very demanding selection process and the protection of the grantee are the two elements that explain the secret and success of this system,’ he concluded. He also presented some statistical data: between 2003 and 2024, more than 130,000 projects from 49 countries were evaluated, with researchers of 162 nationalities; of these, almost 17,000 projects were funded, with an approval rate of around 12%, distributed across 35 countries and with grantees of 97 nationalities, with a total value of approximately €29 billion. In Portugal, 197 projects were approved, worth €310 million. There is therefore plenty of room and opportunity for growth in Portugal, requiring a “de-complexification” and a change in the “general disposition of Portuguese academics”.

Then, it was time for the premiere of the documentary ‘VINCULUM: a journey of scientific research’, directed by João Esteves and co-produced by Rita Sampaio da Nóvoa. As Maria de Lurdes Rosa explained, the documentary aims to ‘leave a record of a long scientific activity that involved many people’, as well as ‘increase the number of applications and the interest of younger researchers in these grants’. In addition to this visual legacy, Maria de Lurdes Rosa announced another: the science communication programme ‘Maintaining Links with History: Long Past for a Conscious Present’, which brings together a set of initiatives that are still ongoing and others that will start soon. One of these initiatives is participation in the Machico Medieval Market in May, whose motto in 2026 will be ‘People of the Settlement.’ On that occasion, the “Tombo I da Igreja de Machico” (First Register of the Church of Machico) will be launched, ‘the oldest known documentary record of these Atlantic lands’, discovered by the local parish priest and restored, digitised and transcribed by the VINCULUM team, with the support of the Regional Directorate for Archives, Libraries and Books. The document ‘reveals the pulse of the early days, a time of auspicious designs but very few certainties, in which earthly and spiritual bonds were present’.

After the session, Maria de Lurdes Rosa explained to us that the scientific principle underlying this new phase of her research and new participatory projects is the ‘idea that, in order to understand the present correctly and comprehensively, we cannot limit ourselves to the recent past,’ adding that ‘the otherness of societies under the Old Regime, in terms of organisation and logic, must be known and studied outside of a vision of historical progress, using correct analytical methods, such as historical anthropology.’ This perspective not only ‘avoids genealogical and identity-based readings of the present, but also allows us to better understand societies that, in today’s world, maintain a structure that is different from that which was inaugurated in Western Europe in the 18th century.’ Furthermore, there are advantages to ‘overcoming chronological barriers that are largely ideological products, such as the Medieval-Modern-Contemporary scheme.’