Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Universidade Católica Portuguesa (better known in Portugal as UCP or just “Católica”) was established in 1967 by decree of the Holy See (Lusitanorum Nobilissima Gens), at the request of the Portuguese Bishops’ conference and under Concordat Law. UCP has its headquarters in Lisbon, with regional centres in Porto, Braga and Viseu.
UCP has recently celebrated its 50-year anniversary and, over the years, has drawn on the great tradition of Catholic universities to develop an internationally minded transformational education and research model. Amongst UCP alumni, you can find a Nobel Prize winner, several of the world’s top CEO’s and political leaders, renowned scientists, Church leaders and social entrepreneurs.
With top positions in several international universities’ rankings, such as Financial Times Business School Rankings, Eduniversal Ranking and others, UCP has over 10,500 students in degree-granting programmes and over 7,500 in non-degree-granting programmes.
The UCP Alumni have been also engaging, per month, in more than 16,000 hours of volunteer work, supporting the notion that “a great university translates its core values into social impact, measuring ambition with social responsibility, labouring not for the profit of the few but for the good of humanity”, transmitted by Professor Isabel Capeloa Gil, the current UCP Rector appointed in 2016.
UCP envisions being a “leader in global education and in the production of science for the common good” (UCP vision). With close to 1,000 teachers and 200 international teachers, UCP has 15 research units which have produced over 1,200 publications, including nearly 500 articles published in international indexed journals.
The internationalisation efforts of UCP count with close to 800 mobility protocols and 450 cooperation agreements with international universities, contributing to the flux of 900 incoming students, nearly 800 outgoing students and to the enrolment of close to 2000 international students of 91 nationalities.
Rector’s Office
Lisbon – Headquarters
Porto Regional Centre
Braga Regional Centre
Viseu Regional Centre
UCP Alumni Tuition Discount
Available to UCP alumni and their next of kin (spouses, children and parents)
In recognition of the important role of the Catholic University of Portugal (UCP) to USJ, USJ is delighted to be able to offer the alumni of UCP and their next of kin (spouses, children and parents) a 25% discount on tuition fees for all degree programmes starting from 2020-2021 academic year. Click here to learn more.
Recognition of USJ degrees by UCP
The University of Saint Joseph (USJ) was created by UCP and the Diocese of Macao in 1996, under the former name of Instituto Inter-Universitário de Macau (IIUM). USJ is an autonomous university closely associated to UCP.
UCP issued a declaration on the current status of USJ Degree Recognition in November 2018 (download here) and USJ issued a clarification on this subject in regards to the application of the New Higher Education Law in Portugal (download here).
To know more about recognition of international degrees in Portugal see the DGES Website.
To apply to Recognition of International degrees in Portugal (including by UCP) follow this link.
For more information, please contact info@reitoria.ucp.pt.
