Griffith University welcomed the University of Porto (U.Porto) to its Nathan campus on 2 September 2015, helping to cement a relationship which may see Griffith become an Australian university partner for them. A successful research collaboration has already been underway since 2013, in the form of a project on the social history of Portuguese punk funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) led by Professor Paula Guerra (Department of Sociology, U.Porto).
Professor Andy Bennett (Director, Griffith Centre for Cultural Research), a key collaborator for the project, and a key advocate for the partnership, facilitated discussion during the visit which saw dialogue centred round the fostering of cooperation and joint participation in projects. The delegation leader, Professor Fátima Marinho, Vice-Rector for Cooperation and Culture, noted that U.Porto has scope for English (only) speaking students to come and study with them, with Griffith colleagues further coming to the realisation that there was sufficient breadth of programs between the two institutions to allow for cross disciplinary courses to be taught.
As a leading Portuguese university, U.Porto is the largest university by number of enrolled students, and, has one of the most noted research outputs in Portugal, especially with regards to producing Scientific articles.
U.Porto already has a number of successful international partnerships in Europe and North and South America and is now seeking additional partnerships in Australasia, for research collaboration, PhD student and staff exchanges. Given the close proximity of Griffith’s Humanities and Social Sciences research focus with those of U.Porto, Griffith is ideally placed to form a partnership.
