Science Café | Universidade Católica Portuguesa

Universidade Católica Portuguesa organizes the Science Café “Heritage as a bridge: valorisation, education, and cross-cultural dialogue”, within the framework of the Common European Sustainable Heritage Week promoted by Transform4Europe, will take place on 17 March, from 6:00 pm to 8:30 pm, at Fundação Livraria Lello, in Porto.

Francisco Mendes Palma, T4EU@UCP Coordinator, Maria Aguiar, School of Arts, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Rita Marques, President of Fundação Livraria Lello, and LelloIryna Sikorska, Director of the Center for International Education, Mariupol State University, are the keynote speakers of this informal debate.

Rather than formal lectures, Science Cafés promote conversation, exchange of perspectives, and critical reflection in a relaxed and participatory environment.

The session will include an initial welcome and networking moment, a guided visit to the Foundation, and finally, the roundtable discussion.

The discussion will explore heritage as a space for shared knowledge, cultural value creation, and intercultural understanding, encouraging active audience participation and highlighting heritage as a living, socially engaged process.

About the speakers:

Francisco Mendes-Palma is member of the Steering Committee of Transform4Europe and Institutional Coordinator at Universidade Católica Portuguesa. Invited professor at Católica Lisbon School of Business and Economics, Francisco Mendes-Palma is an economist with a mix of academic, institutional, public, and private sector experience.

Maria Aguiar is a Professor at the School of Arts of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa, having participated in the creation of the Conservation and Restoration Department at the School, and in the setting up of five conservation and restoration laboratories, a chemistry laboratory, a photography studio, and X-ray and developing rooms.

The professor is a member of the Board of the European Network for Conservation-Restoration Education (ENCoRE), and a consultant for the Departamento Municipal de Gestão Cultural – Divisão Municipal de Museus – da Câmara Municipal do Porto (Portugal), in preventive conservation, responsible for planning and coordinating the project to transference the collections and organization of the new municipal storages – Reservas do Museu do Porto – opened in 2026.

Rita Marques is President of the Livraria Lello Foundation, a business consultant, and a faculty member at Porto Business School, University of Porto. She is also an expert at the Just Transition Platform and a Group Leader at the European Commission’s Harnessing Talent Platform.

From 2019 to 2022, she served as Portugal’s Secretary of State for Tourism, Commerce and Services and was a member of the Executive Committee of the UN World Tourism Organization.

Iryna Sikorska is the Head of the Center of International Education and Associate Professor of the Department of Cultural Studies of Mariupol State University, Kyiv, Ukraine (displaced to Kyiv in 2022 due to Russian aggression against Ukraine).

The researcher specializes in personal and professional intercultural capacity building, multicultural team development, and effective cross-cultural negotiations, and has been a guest lecturer at Vytautas Magnus Univerisy, Ostrava University, Freie University, University of Salerno, and Wyższa Szkoła Biznesu – National Louis University in Nowy Sacz.