In its mission to serve society through knowledge, which is crucial for the future of the country, NOVA University Lisbon has its most valuable resource in the people who make up its community, all of them.
Among the various groups that make up this community, there are non-academic professionals whose work contributes every day to the good functioning of the services that support all the University's activities, supporting in the most diverse ways its strategic decisions and the initiatives that implement them, and on whom the quality of our performance and the fulfillment of this mission largely depend.
Universities are not businesses, nor should they pretend to be. However, universities increasingly need to be managed professionally to deliver the services inherent in their mission with the level of excellence they require and in contexts of increasing complexity and dynamism that will characterise the exercise of teaching, research, and innovation.
Recognising the importance of these professionals is the most basic institutional justice. But it is also essential to promote a healthy and productive working environment and to create an inclusive and collaborative community in which all members are valued for their role in achieving the goals of this institution and therefore feel committed to it. and an integral part of its challenges and successes.
In this spirit, I am pleased to remind you that applications are now open for the second edition of the ADN Awards - Acting Differently at NOVA created to recognise the most innovative practices developed by these professionals as a team. The rules for these awards have been deliberately changed to allow for more winning projects and to guarantee the presence and coordination of these projects by non-academic professionals.
I, therefore, encourage all our technical professionals to submit their entries by the end of this month, so that the excellence of your work, which is essential to NOVA's success, continues to be recognised and stimulates innovation across the University. We need your innovative ideas and initiatives. Compete!