University of Coimbra awards honorary doctorates to King of Spain and President of Italy
The ceremony will be held on Tuesday, 13 May at 6 pm in the Great Hall of Acts and will be broadcast live to the University community in the Faculty of Law Auditorium and online at www.uc.pt/emdireto.
King Felipe VI of Spain and President of Italy Sergio Mattarella will be awarded the degree of Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of Coimbra (UC) on Tuesday, 13 May, in a ceremony to be held at 6 pm in the Great Hall of Acts (Sala dos Capelos).
The President of the Portuguese Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, will be the presenter for both recipients. Felipe VI will be honoured by the Faculty of Law (FDUC) and Sergio Mattarella by the Faculty of Economics (FEUC), with the laudations delivered by Professors Rui de Figueiredo Marcos (FDUC) and Raquel Freire (FEUC), respectively.
In recent decades, only a small number of serving heads of state have been awarded the title of Doctor honoris causa by the University of Coimbra, the most recent being the President of Greece, Prokopis Pavlopoulos, in 2017. Felipe VI will receive the distinction some 36 years after his father, Juan Carlos I, was awarded the same honorary degree by the Faculty of Law of the University of Coimbra on 17 May 1989.
The formal ceremony conferring the honorary doctorates upon Felipe VI and Sergio Mattarella is by invitation only, but will be livestreamed for the University community in the Faculty of Law auditorium and at www.uc.pt/emdireto. The reception of the honourees at the Porta Férrea (17:10) and the academic procession from the Joanina Library to the Great Hall of Acts (departing at 17:55) are open to the public and may be followed in the Pátio das Escolas.