Six ideas for Portugal and its scientific diaspora: opening speech at LUSO 2026

At the opening of the 19th edition of LUSO, on 24 October 2026 in London, PARSUK

President Catarina M. Liberato reflected on how Portugal thinks about its qualified

diaspora, and on what PARSUK has been doing to turn talent circulation into value for the country.

Distinguished guests, partners, members of PARSUK, dear friends, Good morning, and welcome to LUSO 2026.

Let me begin by thanking Minister Margarida Balseiro Lopes and the Secretary of

State for Portuguese Communities, Emídio Sousa, for their messages this morning.

It means a great deal to this community to know that it is heard at the highest level.

I also have a message to pass on to you. The Minister of Education, Science and

Innovation, Professor Fernando Alexandre, has been in China over the past few

days and could not be with us today. He asked me to wish you all the very best,

and to say that he hopes today will be another moment where ideas and projects

can happen. Minister, we will do our best.

A question we keep asking

This is the 19th edition of LUSO. The first took place in 2008. Since then we have

lived through a financial crisis, Brexit and a pandemic, and LUSO has not missed a

single year.

This year's theme is Sem Fronteiras: talent on the move between Portugal and the

United Kingdom.

Those of you who have been coming for a while may be smiling, because this is not

the first time LUSO has asked this question. In one form or another, almost every

edition has come back to it: do we stay, do we go back, or is there another way?

We keep asking because the answer keeps changing.

I have six ideas I would like to share with you today. For each one, I will tell you

what PARSUK has been doing about it.

The first: the debate starts in the wrong place

I recently read a book by members of the Portuguese Diaspora Council, the

Conselho da Diáspora Portuguesa. It opens its chapter on talent with a sentence I

wish I had written: the Portuguese public debate on talent tends to start in the

wrong place.

It starts, the authors say, from four silent assumptions. Those who leave are talent.

Those who stay are not. Returning is always desirable. Emigrating is always a loss.

All four are too simple. Not everyone who leaves creates value. Staying in Portugal

does not mean a lack of sophistication. Not every return adds something new. And

not all the value created by Portuguese people is captured by Portugal.

That last point matters most. Today, 43% of Portuguese people aged 25 to 34 have

a degree. Around 1.8 million people born in Portugal live abroad. The country

produces talent and attracts talent. What it struggles with is keeping, and growing,

the value that talent creates.

So the authors propose a different question. Not “how many people leave and how

many come back?”, but “how much of the value created by Portuguese people,

inside and outside the country, comes back to Portugal?”. In their words: the body

does not have to be in Portugal for the value to be Portuguese.

PARSUK has evidence for this. Our PUMP study, published in October 2023, found

that between 2014 and 2020 Portuguese and British researchers took part together

in almost 1,500 international projects and produced around 15,000 publications.

Since 2019, the Bilateral Research Fund, run with FCT, has supported researchers

to build projects across both countries. And today, at the LUSO Talent Exchange,

TEKEVER, GeneT and the Galician Innovation Agency are here to recruit. That is

not a drain. It is circulation.

The second: not all value is economic, and not all of it can be counted

If value is what counts, we need to see it. Here I want to add something to that

argument.

Value is not only economic. A researcher who supervises a student in Coimbra

from London creates value. So does a clinician who brings a protocol back to Porto,

or a network that opens a door that would otherwise stay closed. Some of that

value shows up in exports within a year. Some of it takes a decade. And some of it,

trust, reputation and the way other countries see us, does not fit easily into any

table. In international relations, we call it soft power. The fact that we cannot

measure something well does not mean it does not exist.

PARSUK knows this from experience. For two years now, we have been

contributing to the reform of Portugal's science and higher education system: the revision of the legal framework for higher education institutions, the RJIES; the

revision of the Science Law; and the reform of FCT into the new Agency for

Research and Innovation. This is not one document. It is two years of thinking,

debating, sitting in meetings and sharing what we know of how the UK system is

designed and how it actually works.

The clearest example came on 26 May. At the invitation of the Ministry, PARSUK

convened the Technical Mission to London. We brought together in the same room

more than 50 delegates from the Portuguese Government and its agencies, and

representatives of the UK Government, its agencies and its leading institutions:

DSIT, the Government Office for Science, the FCDO, the Wellcome Trust, Universities UK International, Digital Catapult, UCL and King's. Portugal is reforming its science system while the UK is still learning from its own reform, the creation of UK Research and Innovation. Few countries have such a useful mirror so close at hand, and a community that lives inside it every day.

For Portugal, it was a chance to learn from a country that has already been through

a similar reform, including what worked and what did not. And make no mistake, it

was also a chance for the United Kingdom to engage with its oldest ally, and to

develop a relationship in science, technology and innovation that has so far been

largely unexplored.

So what is the value of a day like that? Let me give you an example. What is the

value of a government deciding not to adopt a measure it was considering?

Imagine that, while designing the merger of its science and innovation agencies,

the Portuguese Government sits down with British counterparts and learns that the

UK made a similar choice, that it carried risks no one had foreseen, and that the UK

has since had to do things differently. Avoiding that mistake may be worth more

than many projects we celebrate. But it will never appear in any statistic.

The third: from knowledge to impact

That brings me to how we measure impact, and to what I believe is the great

unexplored opportunity in Portuguese science.

Portugal has become very good at producing knowledge. Our PUMP study shows

it: 15,000 joint publications with the UK in seven years. But a publication is the

beginning of impact, not the end. The harder question is what happens next. How

much of that knowledge reaches a company, a hospital, a public service, a new

product? Today, the link in the chain that turns research into innovation, valorisation

and knowledge transfer, receives only around 4% of public research funding in

Portugal.

This is not a question of talent or of will. It is a question of instruments. And here

the UK has a lot to teach. It has a dedicated, predictable stream of funding for

universities to work with industry, the Higher Education Innovation Fund, worth

around 280 million pounds a year. It has the Catapult centres, which bridge

research and business with a stable base of public funding. And it has Knowledge

Transfer Partnerships, which place graduates and researchers inside companies,

on real contracts, to deliver real projects.

These are the kinds of instruments PARSUK has proposed in its contributions to

the AI² reform: a dedicated funding line for knowledge transfer, stable funding for

interface institutions such as the CoLABs, and a scheme to bring doctorates into

companies. They need to be designed carefully and implemented patiently. But

they are what turns scientific excellence into economic and social value.

And if we want to know whether they work, we need to measure the right things.

The diagnosis behind AI² names the diaspora as a strength and science diplomacy

as an opportunity. Yet not one of its indicators measures either. That is why we

have asked for indicators that capture impact beyond publications, including the

contribution of the scientific diaspora. Our message is simple. Count us, with the

right measures.

The fourth: the diaspora is the silent infrastructure of economic

diplomacy

The same book makes a point economists have documented for years. Countries

with larger diasporas trade more with each other. Diasporas lower the cost of

information and trust, spread knowledge and open markets. The authors call the

diaspora a silent infrastructure of value capture.

Other small countries have understood this. Ireland has just renewed its diaspora

strategy for 2026 to 2030, with alumni hubs and landing platforms for start-ups.

There, the diaspora is treated as an active economic network, not only as a

community to keep in touch with and celebrate. Portugal Nação Global, launched

this year by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is an important first step in the same

direction. PARSUK was proud to take part, especially because there was room, and

vision, to include the scientific diaspora too.

This is what we mean when we say that science diplomacy is the instrument

economic diplomacy is missing. This year we deepened our work with the Ministry

of Foreign Affairs, and in particular with the Secretary of State for Portuguese

Communities, whom I thank for the openness with which he has received our

proposals. One concrete result is the Scientific Telegram: a short, regular briefing

that brings developments in UK science and innovation to Portuguese institutions

through diplomatic channels. It was created by our Science Diplomacy Advisers

pilot, which also mapped, at the Government's request, 63 academic champions

across more than 30 UK institutions, and produced a policy brief setting out three

pillars for the future of science diplomacy in Portugal. Let me tell you about them.

The fifth: good intentions need structure

The pilot's funding has now ended. That is the risk with so much of what diasporas

do: it depends on goodwill, short contracts and volunteers'; evenings. A diaspora alone cannot replace an economic structure that captures value. But a country can build the bridges that connect the two.

That is why our policy brief proposes a new science diplomacy model for Portugal,

built on the diaspora. It rests on three pillars. The first is an institutionalised

PARSUK programme for the Portugal–UK corridor. The second is GraPE,

coordinating Portuguese diaspora associations around the world from its future

home at Ciência Viva. The third is a network of science attachés in priority

embassies, for which a legal basis already exists. The European Union adopted its first framework for science diplomacy this year, and AI² is being designed now.

These windows will not stay open for long.

The sixth: talent goes where it is welcome

Circulation only works if people can move. That is true here, and it is true at home.

This year PARSUK responded to the UK Government's consultation on the

immigration system. We supported the principle that settlement should reflect

contribution, and we asked that researchers, doctoral students and public service

professionals be treated fairly. The same principle applies to Portugal. A country

that wants new ideas has to welcome the people who bring them, whether they are

returning or arriving for the first time.

Thank you

None of this happens without people.

I thank once more all our partners, sponsors and supporting institutions. Your

support is what turns a good idea into a day like today. But it also sustains all the

work we do throughout the year, work that comes from the community and is for the

community.

Closing

I said at the beginning that LUSO keeps asking the same question. I hope that

today we can ask it a little differently.

Not “when are you coming back?”, but “how are you staying connected?”. Not “how

many have we lost?”, but “how much value are we building together, wherever we

are?”.

The body does not have to be in Portugal for the value to be Portuguese. The

people in this room are the proof.

Let me end on a personal note. I feel truly blessed to lead a team of around 20

people, and to engage with so many of you throughout the year. In the past year

alone, this team has given, together and unpaid, more than 100 hours a week: to

secure more funding for your grants, to organise networking events, to give this

community convening power, to promote the interests of the Portuguese in the UK

and of the wider diaspora, and to build its soft power.

But above all, we do it to fulfil a mission that is close to our hearts, and that rests on

the values of science and curiosity: to give back to a country that may not always

feel like home anymore, but that will always be our anchor. Portugal.

Thank you, and have a wonderful LUSO.

Sources and references

• David Pereira de Castro and Paulo Morgado, VAB – Valor Acrescentado Brando (Porto: Vida Económica, July 2026), ISBN 978-989-788-368-2, Chapter 5, “Retenção do Valor do Talento”. Source for the four assumptions, the phrase “the body does not have to be in Portugal for the value to be Portuguese”, the diaspora as a silent infrastructure of value capture, the link between diasporas and trade (OECD and World Bank studies) and the Irish Diaspora Strategy 2026–2030.

• OECD, Education at a Glance 2025: 43% of 25–34-year-olds in Portugal held a higher education degree in 2024.

• United Nations, International Migrant Stock 2024, as cited in VAB – Valor Acrescentado Brando: about 1.8 million people born in Portugal live abroad.

• PARSUK, PUMP – Projeto de Mapeamento Portugal–Reino Unido, October 2023 (parsuk.pt/pump): almost 1,500 joint international projects and about 15,000 joint publications between Portugal and the UK, 2014–2020.

• AI² Strategic Focusing Report, Annex 1, section 3.2, as cited in PARSUK's opinion of 6 July 2026: valorisation and knowledge transfer receive about 4.1% of public research funding.

• Research England, Higher Education Innovation Funding (about £280 million a year); Innovate UK,Catapult centres and Knowledge Transfer Partnerships.

• PARSUK, Technical Mission to London: press brief and mission dossier, 26 May 2026.

• PARSUK, A new Science Diplomacy model for Portugal: A proposal for a sustainable strategy and delivery model, building on the diaspora, policy brief, June 2026.

• PARSUK, contribution to the public consultation on the AI² Strategic Focusing Report, 6 July 2026.

• PARSUK, consultation response to the UK Government White Paper Restoring Control over the Immigration System, 12 February 2026.

• European Union framework for science diplomacy, 2026, as cited in PARSUK's policy brief.