In this edition of News, students are featured as they deserve to be. FMUL not only exists for them, but also exists because of them. Our mission is to teach, educate and train, by endowing society with citizens with values and professionals with skills to change the world. It is, thus, natural for us to focus on the students, listen to them and reflect on and with them. The topic of News could not be more relevant or more timely.
Students serving on the Pedagogical Council, who are nearing the end of their term of office, and Andreia Daniel, the diligent and highly competent chairwoman of the Students’ Association, provide us with clearer insights into what it’s like to experience FMUL from the students’ perspective. Students Carolina Monteiro and Ana Rita Bello, winner of the 2019 Professor Francisco Pulido Valente Teaching Award, round out the array of students’ perspectives. Professor Susana Constantino, Professor Maria José Diógenes and I attempt to show the professors’ angle. All of us lecture to first-year students, whether in the Degree in Nutritional Science, or in the Integrated Master’s Degree in Medicine. The first year is special; the year of welcoming students and forming vital links: if well established and strengthened, the links formed with classmates, with the FMUL institution and with professors will last and will serve as a benchmark. This benchmark will be the most important heritage for the future of the professionals we train and for the future of our faculty. The way FMUL evolves and conforms to its students is something that can be learned by reading about two of our School’s assets: the Student Support Office, and the extraordinary students who are part of the Mentoring and Solvin’it Project. Above all, it’s important to know how FMUL is preparing for the future and wants to appeal to tomorrow’s top students; the assessment of Applicant’s Day in an article appearing in News is the perfect occasion for that. Also within the context of an institution that is open to the outside are two noteworthy items: the ‘For a healthy heart‘ initiative, this time at a primary school, and the protocol signed between FMUL and the Champalimaud Foundation as part of cooperation in clinical areas that could strengthen medical teaching and scientific research at both institutions.

Finally, a very important highlight: the dissemination of the 2018 Activity Report, recently submitted by FMUL’s Administration to the School Council. We cannot help but get to know ourselves (what we produce, the resources we rely on, our strengths and the opportunities of our time), and we will get to know exactly who we are only if we engage in a careful reading of this report. This is like a numbered photo album of our school and the pulse of our collective realisation.

Miguel Castanho

Full Professor at FMUL’s Biochemistry Institute, MMi Group Leader, member of FMUL’s School Council and of News@FMUL’s Editorial Board