CHAM – Centre for the Humanities is an inter-University research unit of the Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, and of the Universidade dos Açores, funded by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia.

In recent years, CHAM has become one of the largest Portuguese research units within the Humanities. In a multi-cultural and collaborative environment, CHAM brings together researchers with training on different periods (from Antiquity to the Modern and Contemporary periods), several disciplinary fields ( Archaeology, Art History, Heritage, Literature, Philosophy and History of Ideas), and areas of History (Economic, Social, Cultural, Religious, Political, Scientific, History of Books and Reading Practices), as well as specialists in the history of different geographical areas.

CHAM’s mission aims to:

• Cultivate the Humanities as a constitutive legacy of higher-education institutions as well as the foundation of contemporary democratic societies;
• Promote original and systematic research into the historicity of human representations and actions, through specialized teams and programs, and according to a multidisciplinary orientation;
• Promote advanced academic training in the fields of historical, archaeological, philosophical, political, literary, philological and artistic studies;
• Disseminate knowledge within the framework of the critical and international debate on science, and in open dialogue with society.

“Frontiers” is the central theme of CHAM’s strategic project for 2015-2023. 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 frontiers with the construction of identities.

Due to its cross-cultural approach, as well as the use of comparative and multidisciplinary perspectives, CHAM asserts itself as a research unit ready to deal with the challenges and the needs of present day society, being attentive to the past and with a vision of the Humanities of the future.