Maria Helena Araújo e Sá (female) is full Professor at the Department of Education and Psychology of the University of Aveiro (Portugal), where she teaches and supervises masters, doctoral and post-doctoral students in the area of Language Teacher Education. She is vice-coordinator of the CIDTFF (Research Centre Didactics and Technology in Education of Trainers, https://www.ua.pt/cidtff/), directs the PhD in Education and coordinates the LALE (Open Laboratory for Foreign Language Learning, https://www.ua.pt/cidtff/lale/). Research and publication areas are: e-networked intercomprehension and plurilingual and intercultural communication.
Peer esteem indicators include: frequent invitations to give keynote presentations and seminars internationally and to participate in PhD defense presentation; frequent collaboration as a trainer with international language policy agencies (such as Latin Union, Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie); member of several editorial and advisory boards; external examiner of the PhD Politica, Educazione, Formazionelinguistico-culturali (Università degli Studi di Macerata, Italy); invitation to organize international Conferences as convener (e.g.: IALIC 2014, International Association of Languages and Intercultural Communication).
Recent coordination expertise in projects in the area:
- 2012-2015 – National coordinator, member of the Management Board and Work package coordinator of the project MIRIADI –Mutualization and Innovative Research within an Interconnected Network Aiming to Develop e-Intercomprehension, funded under the Lifelong Learning Programme (LLP), transversal Key Activity 2 (Languages) – Networks (531186-LLP-1-FR-KA2-KA2NW). Amount: 714.478,00€; 19 partners, 7 countries; 19 associated partners and 5 countries; miriadi.net
- 2008-2010 – Coordinator of the project Galapro – Education of Trainers for Intercomprehension in Romance Languages, funded under the Lifelong Learning Programme (LLP), Key Activity 2 (Languages) – Multilateral projects (2007-3636/001-001; no: 135470-LLP-2007-1-PT-KA2-KA2MP). Amount: 649.779,00€; 8 partners, 6 countries; galapro.eu. In this ambit, Maria Helena Araújo e Sá conceived the distance training platform Galapro (www.galapro.eu/sessions), whose sustainability is perceived in annual training sessions (more than de 1000 enrolled trainees). Galapro was evaluated by the EACEA, getting the average mark of 8/10;
- 2006/ 2009 – Coordinator of the project Language Didactics: a meta-analytical study of research in Portugal (POCI/CED/59777/2004). 43.492,00€ http://emip.web.ua.pt