Jorge Almeida won 2.5 million euros to enhance and optimize research at the University of Coimbra in the field of cognitive neurosciences.
The funding will allow, over five years, to enhance this research at the UC. The project is funded under the ERA Chair Actions, the European Commission’s funding mechanism that supports universities and research centers so that they can attract and retain qualified human resources and, at the same time, boost research excellence in their fields of action,
Jorge Almeida will coordinate the ERA Chair “CogBooster”, which has the central objective of “creating ans sustaining an extremely strong research group in Cognitive Neuroscience, which should also support the applied research currently carried out at FPCEUC, framing the innovation developed therein in a strong fundamental science” explains the Proaction Lab Director.
«Since the last decade of the last century, this has been one of the most central areas in the best Departments/Faculties of Psychology in Europe and the world. Specifically, at least 40% of the people in these departments are dedicated to research and teaching in the field of Cognitive Neuroscience. The percentage of professors and research community dedicated to this subject area in the Faculties of Psychology in Portugal is situated, on average, at 12%, this in a context with more than 80% of professors related to applied areas of Psychology, namely the area of mental health, which does not happen in Psychology departments or faculties that are a world reference», contextualizes Jorge Almeida. In this context, the ERA Chair “CogBooster” intends to “have a transformative effect in strengthening scientific research in Cognitive Neuroscience in Portugal, both at the academic and societal level, bringing it closer to the examples of the best psychology departments European and worldwide", he adds.
This project will have as leader (the “ERA Chair Holder”) Alfonso Caramazza, professor at Harvard University, in the United States of America, «one of the most respected and cited researchers in the field of Psychology and Cognitive Science, who has published more than 450 articles and book chapters, having been awarded numerous prizes and distinctions, which has been contributing, in a central way, to the development of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology, namely in the areas of psycholinguistics, semantic memory, mental representations and their organization in the brain, and in the study of patients with neuronal lesions», highlights Jorge Almeida. The “ERA Chair Holder” will lead the “CogBooster” project team and coordinate research and dissemination efforts, in order to strengthen the area of cognitive neuroscience at the University of Coimbra.
The research group will include current professors and researchers from the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences at the UC, namely Maria Paula Paixão, Leonor Pais and Óscar Gonçalves, in addition to Jorge Almeida. In the future, it will allow the hiring of a large research and teaching team.
(Text from UC news in https://noticias.uc.pt/)
