Arts Management Degrees in Portugal

The first full-blown Arts Management course in Portugal was promoted by the National Institute of Administration in 1989 and it did not confer an academic degree. This one-year course was replicated later in the Cultural Centre of Belém, in association with Professor Joan Jeffri from the University of Columbia, but it ended in 1999. Presently, there are many short non-academic courses in Arts Management and related disciplines, all of them promoted by associations or enterprises working in the cultural sector.

The post-graduate course in Cultural Management of the Lusófona University of Humanities and Technology in Lisbon started in 1998 and it was held for several years at the Polytechnic Institute of Porto. In 2005/06 the course is being held solely in Lisbon, but the prospect is that it will resume activity in Porto, next year, at the Lusófona University. This course is mainly directed at people working in the public and private cultural sectors, but it also welcomes students aiming at a specialization. The distinguishing features of the curriculum, according to the Directors Victor Flores and António Jorge Monteiro, is that it starts from management to culture and not the other way around, and that it is constructed so as to prepare the students step-by-step for the writing of a practical project that should be feasible. An estimate of around 10 to 20% of these projects has been successfully implemented. This course in a full-member of ENCATC European Network of Cultural Administration Training Centers and promotes a yearly programme of conferences.

The post-graduate course in Cultural Management in the Cities begun in 2001 and was held in INDEG Business School in Lisbon. According to the Executive Director Catarina Vaz Pinto, the main idea of the course was to construct a curriculum that would appeal to people that were already working in the cultural sector and that would give them more advanced tools for their specialization. The aim, thus, was to qualify and gather in a circle of discussion arts managers with some experience. The faculty promoted conferences and excursions to cultural locations both in Portugal and abroad and the course is a full-member of ENCATC. This course has been interrupted since last year for a redefinition of its format and also due to the inadequate profile of the applicants. Many former students of this course are now in leading positions in the cultural sector and/or have created their own enterprises in the field.

At the Catholic University in Porto there is the Master in Management of Cultural Heritage. It started as a post-graduate course in 2003, but only in March 2005 it became a Master, so no students have graduated as masters yet. People attending this degree are mainly specialists already working in the cultural sector in search of higher qualifications. Despite its fundamental concern with heritage, this degree also encompasses subject matters related to other arts fields such as the performing arts. A more strict degree is lectured at the Catholic University in Lisbon, where the span of the curriculum of the Master degree in Cultural Heritage is narrowed down to the study of museums, edified heritage and archives, mainly under a catholic perspective.
Finally, a post-graduate course in Management of Cultural Projects is supposed to open soon at the Piaget Institute in Almada.

Relevant links:
Post-graduate course in Arts Management in the Cities: http://www.indeg.org
Master in Management of Cultural Heritage: http://www.porto.ucp.pt
Post-graduate course in Cultural Management: http://www.ulusofona.pt
Post-graduate course in Management of Cultural Projects: http://www.ipiaget.org

An article by Susana Graça, correspondent, Lisbon