University of Coimbra

The University of Coimbra (UC), established in 1290, stands as one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in Europe. Renowned for its rich historical significance and academic excellence, UC is a vibrant institution fostering innovation, research, and cultural heritage. Classified as UNESCO World Heritage in 2013, its architectural beauty and historical importance reflect its enduring legacy. The mission of the University of Coimbra revolves around three pivotal axes: education, research, and knowledge. Through these pillars, UC aims to uphold its commitment to nurturing academic growth, facilitating ground-breaking research, and advancing the boundaries of knowledge across various disciplines. This comprehensive approach empowers UC to be a beacon of learning, shaping the future of education while preserving its illustrious past.

Role within PROTEMO

UC coordinates, together with CES, the organisation of the PROTEMO’s kick-off meeting, as well as the first synergy meeting with other HEU consortia. Additionally, UC cooperates in the following Work Packages (WP):

WP 1 - Theoretical and conceptual framework. UC coordinates tasks concerning the literature review on social representations, social identities, and emotional dynamics related to protection. UC also participates in the theoretical framework that guides PROTEMO’s work (e.g., affective citizenship, emotional needs, emotional entrepreneurs, emotional dynamics), which brings together contributions from political theory, policy analysis, social and political psychology, discourse theory, and critical race and gender studies.
WP 2 - Research design and data collection. UC participates in tasks concerning the preparation of a cross-national survey in 11 countries and data collection in Portugal, exploring how emotional reactions of individual citizens and groups affect: social representation and perceptions of protective policies; political participation, trust in political institutions, and democracy, as well as mobilisation both in the virtual universe and in real life; and vulnerability towards mis- and dis-information.
WP 3 - Analysing emotional reactions to protective policies. UC participates in the analysis of data from the PROTEMO survey and experiments using quantitative methods, namely: the positions that social actors occupy within social relations (how they modulate processes at different levels attending to systems of beliefs, representations, evaluations, social norms, and cultural and ideological productions); how citizens’ emotional reactions are related to political participation, trust in political institutions, and democracy; how the mobilisation in virtual and real-life occurs related to emotions and vulnerability to mis- and dis-information; which emotions are elicited by certain framings of protective policies.
WP 4 - Emotional needs in multi-layered and affective citizenship. In this WP UC coordinates task 4.1 - Identifying different social representations and social positions. This task digs into the social representations of protection, protective policies, and related concepts (social justice, social welfare, welfare deservingness), studying their emergency through objectification and anchoring, crossing with variables such as country and social category, especially focused on migrations. The role of emotions in the representational processes will be investigated based on the emergence and dynamics of social representations, their emotional dimensions, and considering social representations as a background for the emotional processes.
WP 6 - Synthesising reactions and policy-making, deep dives and multi-country comparisons, and theoretical advances - and WP7 - Dissemination, Communication, Exploitation and Sustainability. UC participates in communication and stakeholder outreach and dissemination activities, as well as in exploitation strategies and sustainability plans. Based on the deliverables of the different WPs, two internal workshops will be organized, engaging in deep academic exchange and development on conceptual framework, and mixed-methods and results analysis.

Main contacts

Prof Lisete Santos Mendes Mónico

Coordinator

Prof Mário Manuel Rodrigues Simões

Prof Maria Paula Paixão

Prof Ana Cardoso Allen Gomes

Prof Paulo Menezes

Dr Sofia Morgado Pereira

Our Perspective
on PROTEMO

PROTEMO features in the agenda centre four main current subjects: emotions, socio-political contexts, protective public policies, and human rights. The project's innovative methodology, focused on different levels of analysis and its inter- and transdisciplinary perspective, brings high-impact research and new insights into the emotional politics of democracies.