CHAM – Centre for the Humanities is an inter-university research unit of the School of Social Sciences and Humanities of NOVA University Lisbon (NOVA FCSH) and of the University of the Azores (UAç), funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT).

In recent years, CHAM became one of the largest Humanities research units in Portugal. Its international collaborative environment welcomes researchers from several fields (Archaeology, Art History, Heritage, Literature, Philosophy, History of Ideas) and from different areas of historical research (Economic, Social, Cultural, Religious, Political, Scientific, History of Books and Reading Practices), who work on different geographical areas and historical periods (from Antiquity to the Modern and Contemporary periods).

CHAM’s mission and values are:

. To foster the legacy of the Humanities as a formative element in higher-education institutions and in the foundation of contemporary democratic societies.

. To promote original and systematic research into the historicity of human representations and actions, through specialised teams and programs, following the principle of multidisciplinary.

. To promote advanced academic training in the fields of historical, archaeological, philosophical, political, literary, philological, and artistic studies.

. To disseminate knowledge in open dialogue with society at large, within the framework of critical and international scientific debates.

“Questioning Frontiers” is the central theme of CHAM’s strategic project for 2015-2024. Grounded on a solid historiographical basis, this multidisciplinary project is organized around three structural problems: frontiers as a spatial division; frontiers as an intellectual demarcation; and the role of frontiers in the construction of identities.

Because of its cross-cultural approach, as well as its comparative and multidisciplinary perspectives, CHAM asserts itself as a well-equipped research unit to face the challenges and the needs of present-day society, simultaneously studying the past and offering a vision of the Humanities for the future.