This Christmas, we offer you knowledge

Diversity, independence, democracy, rigour, freedom and equal opportunities: these are the values that guide us here at Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos. Since 2009, these values have been the guiding principles informing our work as we analyse, reflect on, debate and share knowledge on Portuguese society.

This Christmas, we’re offering a selection of our 2025 output — from Pordata, to studies, books, our programming and the content we created in partnership with other organisations.

Pordata is the Foundation’s statistics portal. Since 2010, we’ve used Pordata to provide empirical data on contemporary Portugal, free of charge, clearly, impartially and rigorously, with historical series dating back to 1960. Now, Pordata boasts a new area featuring Portraits of the Municipalities, presenting key information for each of the country’s 308 municipalities.

The Foundation has been doubling down on its role as a producer of scientific knowledge with recent studies on electoral abstention, changes in public policies, demography, income inequality and poverty, each of which offers an in-depth portrait of the country and points to solutions for its main challenges.

We’ve published several policy papers this year with strategic recommendations in mind — from the series on the energy transition in Europe, developed with the Brookings Institution, to analyses of the impacts of automation and artificial intelligence and the expansion of vocational education. And because data does not always match perceptions, we once again surveyed the population, this time on local government and tourism.

Over two million Foundation books are now in the hands of Portuguese readers. The Foundation’s Plazas, which this year took place at the Lisbon Book Fair and at El Corte Inglés, debate these titles.

The Foundation’s essay collection marked its 15th anniversary in 2025. To celebrate this momentous occasion, we’ve released the commemorative edition Light books, weighty opinions, which compiles a series of original texts by our authors on themes such as national identity, democracy, foreign policy, defence, justice, the environment, energy and artificial intelligence.

Our videocast, It’s Not That Simple, featured global experts discussing urgent contemporary issues such as artificial intelligence, genetics, biotechnology, space exploration, geography, globalisation, inflation and productivity. The [IN]Pertinente podcast, meanwhile, hosted weekly conversations between specialists and communicators on topics as varied as political theory, financial literacy, mental health, oncology, housing and religion.

At the Foundation’s Summer School, sixty students from across the country gathered in Peniche to learn about and debate the challenges of artificial intelligence. Furthermore, we held two conferences to conclude the focus on Portugal’s trajectory during its five decades of democracy. These conferences took place in Porto and Aveiro, while Pordata’s travelling exhibition of infographics on this decisive period also visited various Portuguese cities.

Finally, we invite you to explore the programming the Foundation has developed in partnership with other organisations. One example is our collaboration with Foreign Policy, where Portuguese specialists selected articles from this international journal for publication on the Foundation’s Atual_Mentes blog.

We also partnered with RTP to produce documentaries about Portugal, including the most recent on the emigration of young talent. Our partnership with Rádio Renascença, meanwhile, yielded the programme «Cover to Cover» on current affairs and Foundation publications.

Finally, we produced the podcast «I Can Be…» in partnership with the Observador newspaper, centred on themes addressed in the Foundation’s new book collection on mental health.