Created in September 2000, the Faculty of Arts and Letters (FAL) of UBI is located in the former premises of the “Real Fábrica de Panos”, founded by the Marquis of Pombal in 1764, side by side with the Wool Museum. This location is therefore symptomatic of the FAL's goal to combine tradition and modernity, history and futurism.
Born of an original concept in the Portuguese academy of that time, and which today tends to be generalized, the FAL encompasses traditional areas of the letters, such as Portuguese, English and Spanish Languages and Cultures, or Philosophy; areas of Contemporary Arts, such as Design or Cinema; and cross-cutting areas such as Communication Sciences, in the strands of Journalism, Advertising and Public Relations.
These areas unfolded in graduate courses/ 1st cycle, master's/ 2nd cycle and doctoral/ 3rd cycle, in which we seek to conciliate education and research, although with different weights in the several cycles – a greater weight on teaching in 1st cycle courses and on research in 3rd cycle courses.
In addition to formal courses, the FAL offers in its language lab, free courses of English, Spanish, French, Italian and German, and even assures the teaching of Portuguese to foreigners, including the Erasmus students, but not only.
The teaching is ensured by a fairly young teacher staff, mostly doctorates. Research is done within the I&D LABCOM.IFP Unit - Communication, Philosophy and Humanities, funded by FCT- Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia and evaluated with the classification of Very Good.
There are still FAL teachers/ researchers belonging to I&D Units from other universities, evaluated with Very Good or Excellent. Day-to-day research activities are complemented by the organisation of scientific events as congresses (more spaced) or the famous "jornadas" (study days arranged almost every month), in which domestic and foreign researchers participate.
To materialize its education and research activities, and as a result of an educational philosophy which seeks the interconnection between theory and practice, knowledge and know-how, the FAL has appropriate facilities and equipment, of which the television studio, sound studio, radio studio, multimedia lab, cinubiteca (movie theater) and the aforementioned language lab can be stood out. Joining these facilities and equipment there is a very significant bibliographic fund at the Central Library, covering the various areas of teaching and research of the faculty.