To the CATÓLICA-LISBON Community,
Greetings and I hope you are all well and safe.
We are living in challenging times. In response to the COVID-19 Pandemic, our first priority was the well-being of our staff, faculty, and students. We have followed daily and supported all members of our community who were isolated or feeling some symptoms. Two of our staff and our faculty tested positive and have since recovered fully. We received no indication of a positive diagnosis among our students.
Our other immediate priority was to transition all our teaching and pedagogical support activities online to continue fulfilling our mission of knowledge, learning and impact. This was done successfully in mid-March in less than a week, with the remarkable dedication of our staff, extraordinary agility of our faculty and amazing adaptation and positive response from our students. Either through Zoom conferencing or TEAMS video and collaboration tools, all teaching and evaluations are being delivered remotely and the schedule of classes and exams is being kept.
To support better our graduating students and companies, our Careers and Talent Office is working remotely, with the usual availability for individual counseling to help you find the best employment position, adjusting the Learn in Action and Career Accelerator Lab modules to the new online reality, and developing new ways of bringing together our students and partner companies. Contact directly your Career Consultant or careers.clsbe@ucp.pt and pay attention to the weekly updates they are sending you.
In terms of next steps, given the instructions of the Portuguese government and the guidelines of our rectory, I can now confirm that our building will remain closed until the end of April and that we will continue offering all classes remotely until the end of this school year. The end-terms and final exams will follow previously defined schedules. The University is assessing the health situation to decide if the examination process will be done remotely or on-site, with the necessary health precautions. We will share more information on exams, as soon as possible. In any case, as previously stated, we will find appropriate solutions for those who have left Portugal and will be unable to return. Master thesis defences will be scheduled and will occur remotely, if needed.
All of the above describes how we are adapting to the new situation and continuing our mission of knowledge and learning. But does it make sense to continue operating “as usual” in a world that is facing the biggest pandemic in 100 years? The answer is both Yes and No.
There are crises, like natural catastrophes, when we need to stop all that we are doing to help others. This crisis is different. Some (such as the health professionals) are on the frontlines. The rest of us do our part in this pandemic by staying home and teleworking. So let us use this as an opportunity to deepen our knowledge and improve our learning while creating a virtual connection with others. Ironically, now that we are isolated at home, we feel closer to each other and part of a global community. We Stand UNITED.
In terms of the pandemic, I want to share a word of confidence and reassurance. It is true that we are currently experiencing an unprecedented health crisis, of a global reach probably not seen since the “Spanish Flu” of 1918-20. Luckily, our world today is not the world of 1918. We will beat this pandemic more quickly and with a much lower human cost. The world woke up slowly to the pandemic but now the full force of our global health, medical and scientific resources is focused on this challenge. We will overcome the health crisis.
However, we will soon face an unprecedented global economic crisis, which could be of a scale similar to the 1929 Great Depression. NECEP, the Forecasting Lab of CATÓLICA-LISBON, issued one of the first analyses of the economic impact of this crisis for Portugal. The report predicts a reduction of GDP in 2020 between 4% and 20%, depending on the duration of the health crisis and the efficacy of the measures to support the economy. The estimates for the global economy are also very negative.
Luckily, our world today is not the world of 1929. We can act boldly, implementing measures to support the economy, companies and workers, to avoid the more negative scenarios. And time matters. The support measures that governments will implement in the next weeks and the decisions of business leaders and citizens in response to the crisis may mean the difference between a short-lived recession and an economic calamity.
And this is why we need strong expertise in business and economics and why our knowledge, learning and impactful actions are critical. We need to rise to this economic challenge, individually and collectively, and CATÓLICA-LISBON is doing its part as the leading school of business and economics in Portugal.
Our work has been developed on several fronts:
- In addition to the excellent forecasting work of our NECEP, CATÓLICA-LISBON launched last week a task force of our Economics professors to analyze the economic situation and contribute to designing effective policies to support the Portuguese and European economies. Professor Joana Silva, formerly senior Economist at the World Bank, is coordinating these efforts.
- We launched last week a series of Digital Conferences to share the analysis and insights of our faculty and experts with students, executives, alumni, and the public. Our first conferences were devoted to “The Economy in times of Plague” and “Responsible Business Leadership: Challenges from a Global Crisis”.
- We co-sponsored and launched a survey through UCP’s Polling Centre called “COVID-19 and the Portuguese”. We surveyed a representative sample of 1700 Portuguese citizens in the first week of April to understand how they are living and adapting to this crisis. The highlights were released this weekend at RTP and in Público. We will further analyze the data and share the results with you on Tuesday, April 14th, at 5pm during our next digital conference (in Portuguese). Click here to register.
- Consumers are being profoundly affected by this crisis and are changing their shopping behaviors and personal attitudes. Working conditions have also changed dramatically. Our Observatory of the Portuguese Society, together with the Online Research Panel is a powerful research infrastructure to understand these changes. A study conducted last week, with 1000 participants, led by Professor Rita Vale, will offer us insights on the challenges our society faces. The research team is also developing a series of studies to help companies understand better the post-pandemic consumer. The first results will be released this week.
- We are implementing through our Center for Applied Studies (CEA) led by Professor Ricardo Reis, an initiative to assess the impact of the crisis in PMEs of specific sectors and help them overcome the challenges, with the expertise of our faculty and students.
- Our students are also showing great initiative. On April 4th, our student club “Tech@Catolica”, in partnership with our Center for Technological Innovation & Entrepreneurship and Thorly Education ran a Digital Hackaton on Explore COVID-19. 40 participants from numerous countries learned how to use Python and real data to predict the COVID-19 infection curve. The initiative had 80 people on the waitlist and is likely to run again soon.
There will be much to communicate and share, as the world is changing very quickly. At the beginning of each week, I will report to you the latest results of our work, the new insights, and upcoming conferences.
#WeStandUNITED. United as a community and united in support of a healthy economy capable of fulfilling the needs and aspirations of all citizens.
With best regards to all,
Filipe Santos, Dean of CATÓLICA-LISBON.
