Between 2013 and 2017 IHA’s researchers have contributed to:

1. consolidate IHA’s international networking
IHA’s researchers have been building solid international relationships through various networking contexts. These include a) participation in representative/funded networks, b) R&D projects’ international partnerships, c) postdoc projects and co-supervised PhDs, d) co-organization of congresses w/ international partners, and also e) peer-reviews, editorial and scientific boards of international publications, such as RIHA Journal, and edition of books with extensive international participation and circulation.

a) 18 team members fully engage in other international networks such as the European Forum for Advanced Practices, ICOM’s Committee for Conservation, Europeana Network Association, the European Association for Japanese Studies, the International Art Market Studies Association, the Latin American Studies Association, and COPIMONARCH. Some of these evolved into internationally funded projects as is the case of the Network for Conservation of Contemporary Art Research – NeCCAR (2012-2014), and its follow up project New Approaches in the Conservation of Contemporary Art – NACCA, a Marie Curie ITN (2015-2019). Matos and Macedo take part in this network. Activities included the publication of RHA W series n.4 – Performing Documentation (2015).

b) IHA’s R&D projects such as ROBBIANA (PI Flor) and “The Manor House in Lisbon and Rio de Janeiro” (PI Mendonça) have expanded international networking by establishing partnerships with French, Hungarian, Brazilian, and Spanish institutions. Finally, the Flâneur funded by UNESCO and by the EU was an international project involving 18 partners from 11 countries. Alves and Lamoni took part in this project. Activities included the organization of the conference Flâneur – New Urban Narratives (2015) and publication of a book (2016).

c) 7 IHA researchers have their post-doc projects co-hosted by Sorbonne, the École Normale Supérieure, the Courtauld Institute of Art, the Roskild University (Denmark), the CSIC (Madrid), and La Sapienza (Rome). Moreover, IHA members co-supervise 11 PhDs with scholars from European (Sorbonne, Sorbonne Nouvelle, Kingston, Leuven), Brazilian (Univ. Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Univ. São Paulo), Mexican (Univ. Autonoma de Mexico), and US universities (Duke).

d) & e) see section 4.4.

Finally, IHA has bilateral agreements signed with universities from Japan (Tohoku University, Sendai; 1 PhD scholarship attributed), Brazil (Univ. Federal de Rio Grande do Sul) and Spain (Compultense, Madrid).

2. foster new fields of research
IHA has successfully opened new areas of inquiry within its structure by expanding groups’ strategic programmes that strengthen NOVA’s undergraduate and graduate studies associated to art history (including 4 PhD programmes and 2 successful post-graduate courses run by IHA: curatorial studies; art markets and collecting). This expansion was grounded on 3 main procedures: a) the association of new senior members whose research embraces new geographical and thematic areas of study, such as Japanese art and curatorial studies; b) the creation of multidisciplinary Clusters that benefit from a certain autonomy within groups’ structure and are open to external collaborators (coming from national and international institutions). IHA’s Clusters operate in an expanded field of art historical research, animating areas such as art criticism, art markets, photography and film studies and performance art; c) funded R&D projects that expanded basic and applied fields of research and established successful partnerships with external public and private institutions. These projects include 10 FCT funded R&D projects run by IHA researchers between 2013 and 2017, 9 of which are now concluded and have been assessed by FCT panels as A-excellent (evaluators invariably highlight the positive difference between the outputs originally defined and those accomplished by research teams); 5 seed projects that are now co-financed by other institutions, such as the Gulbenkian Foundation, Millenium and EGEAC.

3. attract funding
Research funding has been a priority for IHA’s researchers. Over the last few years, the above mentioned R&D projects were able to raise just over a € 1,000,000 in highly competitive calls promoted by both public and private institutions (e.g. the EU, FCT, Gulbenkian Foundation, etc). The achieved volume of funding and its adequate implementation, along with managed human resources, clearly demonstrate IHA’s good and effective ability to oversee this income. The attraction of funding and the creation of handful strategic partnerships with various national and foreign institutions have fostered an inclusive science policy in line with the EU Horizon 2020, including the promotion of scientific employment, advanced training of young researchers, and postdoctoral visiting-fellows hosting. The internationalisation of the work produced by researchers within these projects has also boosted mobility and networking.
This process decisively benefited from the high level professional support of the Planning & Management office, whose role was acknowledged in IHA’s statutes in 2016.

4. knowledge transfer
Art historical knowledge transfer has been reinforced. Indeed, the work propelled by groups’ and clusters’ strategic plans, as well as the investigation sprouting from R&D projects, was channelled by:

a) open access peer-review publications authored by IHA’s researchers; b) curatorial projects held in prestigious institutions such as the exhibitions 30 anos do CAM (2013), Sallette Tavares: Spatial Poetry (2014) or Almada Negreiros: a way of being modern (2017; more than 130.000 visitors) presented at the Gulbenkian Foundation. Other significant curatorial projects were shown at the Millenium gallery, Casa da America Latina, and Museu do Neo-realismo; c) IHA’s publication platforms, such as the RIHA Journal (IHA’s board of local editors has run the peer-review process for 46 articles, of which 16 were published); the Revista de História da Arte (OA peer-review journal; each thematic issue is based on call for articles; paper version is sponsored by Millenium); the Revista de História da Arte – W series designed for the online edition of conference proceedings (OA peer-reviewed; 5 issues published between 2014 and 2017); d) Digital resources that resulted from the multidisciplinary work environment of R&D projects based on data-intensive research. The amount of digital data produced in different formats led to the implementation of a secure infrastructure to rationalize existing work practices, implement good practices of data research management, and facilitate open data accessibility. IHA has strategically invested part of its funds in an integrated database management software that ensures that data collections are well preserved for reuse, maximizing the return of public funds investment.