The event was organized by the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee and the Academic Services Office as part of the BANDUA project. It brought students, faculty and staff together to discuss what it takes to build an academic community that is truly diverse, inclusive and intercultural.
This morning, NOVA Medical School hosted "Let's Talk About... Cultural Diversity" in the Sala dos Passos Perdidos. The event was organized by the school's Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Committee.
The morning opened with an intercultural breakfast. International students prepared recipes from their home countries in the NOVA Medical School Kitchen Lab. The breakfast was about more than food: it gave students, faculty and staff an informal space to meet, network and share.
The event started from one central question: what does it really mean to be a diverse, inclusive, pluralistic and intercultural institution?
Throughout the morning, the discussion went beyond the idea of representation. Participants explored how different experiences and cultures can actually take part in academic life, in relationships and in the creation of knowledge.
Carlotta Pizano, from the Rectorate of Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, argued that an international university is not defined only by how many international students it has or how many nationalities are present. Diversity also lies in the backgrounds and experiences each person brings, and the institution has to create the conditions for different cultures to interact.
"Interculturality happens when students are able to interact with one another. Interculturality is very hard to achieve. It's when different cultures interact, not just when we have students from different countries in the classroom."
Rute Dinis de Sousa, Director of Strategic Partnerships at NOVA Medical School, also stressed the importance of the concepts themselves. She pointed out that diversity, inclusion, pluralism and interculturality are often used together but need to be distinguished.
Fernando Bozza, a faculty member at NOVA Medical School, added another question to the debate: "What changes when we have a school that is diverse, inclusive, pluralistic and intercultural?"
Drawing on his work with Indigenous communities in the Amazon, he explained that diversity means recognizing that different people are present. An institution only becomes truly pluralistic, however, when those differences matter in how it makes decisions, how it knows and how it produces knowledge.
"Diversity means that we have people here who are different. However, the institution may not be pluralistic. Being pluralistic means that those differences are relevant to the way we make decisions, the way we know and the way we generate knowledge."
This matters especially in health. A complex society needs multiple perspectives to understand health, illness and care, because these involve dimensions that go beyond a purely clinical approach.
Inclusion, he added, is about people's journeys: whether people from different backgrounds can actually become part of the institution and, above all, feel that they belong.
How can we bring more of the world into the school?
Students also had a voice at the event. Members of the NOVA Medical School Student Association and several international students took part.
The international students' experiences raised a particularly important question: how can the school help newcomers fit into an academic culture that is already established?
Over the summer, the Student Association welcomed medical students from 15 countries, which shows how international the NMS community is. Participants also pointed out barriers to integration, especially the gap between the various mobility programs and the everyday academic life of the school.
Language was named as one of the obstacles to building relationships and a sense of belonging. International students agreed that learning Portuguese is important for integrating. They also put a question to the institution: when a school opens itself to the world, should adapting be the job of newcomers alone?
The discussion therefore highlighted the need to build bridges between international students and the school's academic culture. That includes spaces and experiences that let them take a fuller part in school life. Integration doesn't happen only in the classroom. It also happens in the hallways, in student organizations, in extracurricular activities, in informal moments and in the relationships formed between people from different backgrounds.
That space of interaction is where diversity can become interculturality.
A school open to diversity
The panel included Fernando Bozza, a NOVA Medical School faculty member; Carlota, from the Rectorate of Universidade NOVA de Lisboa; representatives of the NMS Student Association; and three international students.
Faculty, staff and students attended the session. It was a moment of dialogue and sharing that underscored why it matters to keep building an academic community where different experiences, cultures and perspectives can come together.
The event is part of NOVA Medical School's commitment to an institutional culture based on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. That commitment goes beyond representation to encourage participation, interaction and a sense of belonging.
Because an international school is not simply one where people from different countries study.
It is one where those people can meet, connect, take part and feel that they, too, belong to the community they are helping to build.