Coordination: Joana Balsa de Pinho

Presentation

The field of studies of health history and cultural heritage is an expanding area, even more so after the Covid-19 pandemic’s impact, which demonstrated the importance of a knowledge of the past for a better understanding and experiencing of the present; especially at the level of the relationship that humanity has established with the epidemic diseases that have always undermined it and the way of experiencing, controlling and fighting them.
The issues of illness and health, however, are not limited to phases in epidemics, but are permanent in past and present human life, marking its daily routine and the way human beings relate to each other and the surrounding environment. For this reason, a number of researchers have been systematically studying these relationships and their material expressions for some years now. However, the present situation restates the importance of gathering knowledge about it and of promoting ways of divulging it and giving relevance to it, as an added value in the establishment of a more enlightened, fairer and more cohesive society. This task must be assured by specialists, working together in an interdisciplinary and collaborative way, to ensure the ultimate quality of results.
Promoting this line of research means also the promotion of a collaborative and interdisciplinary initiative, where historians, art historians, architects and museum experts work together to attain the knowledge, dissemination and enhancement of health history and cultural heritage, namely in its architectural and urbanistic expressions. These actions will take the form of study and promotion initiatives aimed at creating scientific knowledge, and its respective dissemination, on a subject that has been little studied in a systematic and comparative manner.

Objectives

• To encourage the knowledge production and transfer in the field of Health History and Cultural Heritage and to promote collaborative means for its development;
• To promote joint scientific and cultural initiatives, namely research projects, programmes, conferences, exhibitions and publications;
• To promote the individual development of researchers and their research and to expand professional networks, stimulating contacts and collaborations.

Projects and initiatives

• Permanent seminar in face-to-face and digital formats, which will function as a space for scientific dissemination and sharing;
• Book of studies on themes relevant for the research line’s scope of action;
• Regular presentation of research projects to funding competitions.