Mário Soares-EDP Foundation 2024 Award Ceremony

The award ceremony for the Mário Soares-Fundação EDP 2024 Award took place on 30 January at 6pm in the Foundation's auditorium.

Isabel Soares, President of the Mário Soares and Maria Barroso Foundation, opened the session by highlighting the historical importance of the Award and emphasising its impact on academia. Over the 26 editions that have been held, 29 Prizes and 42 Honourable Mentions have been awarded.

José Manuel dos Santos, Director and Cultural Director of the EDP Foundation, patron of the Award, emphasised the central importance of history in Mário Soares' thinking and actions, along with politics, literature and the arts, which were fundamental pillars of his life.

The first prize was awarded to the doctoral thesis ‘Escaping the War and the Holocaust through Portugal: refugees in the “fixed residence” areas of the Centre region (1940-1946)’, by Carolina Pereira Henriques. Carolina Henriques Pereira's thesis, developed at the Faculty of Letters of the University of Coimbra, makes an important contribution to understanding the presence of refugees in Portugal during the Second World War, highlighting their concentration, by decision of the regime, in thermal and bathing resorts in the Centre region of the country.

An honourable mention was also awarded to the work ‘História da UNITA: da Fundação ao Acordo de Alvor (1966-1975)’, by João Fusco Ribeiro, the result of his doctoral thesis in Contemporary History at the University of Évora.

The ceremony also included a debate with former winners of the Award, such as political scientist Marina Costa Lobo and historian Pedro Aires Oliveira, as well as this year's winner, Carolina Pereira Henriques. The moderator was journalist Pedro Jorge Castro.

You can watch the recording of the session in the video below.