Licínio C. Lima

Hall of Fame Class of 2022

For more than 40 years Licínio C. Lima has been committed to the practice and advancement of adult learning and education. His professional career began in 1979 as research assistant for the Unit for Adult Education (UEA) of the University of Minho, Portugal. Since then he has been engaged in research, teaching, publishing, international cooperation projects, policy-oriented studies, and evaluations in the field of Adult and Continuing Education (ACE) globally. In 1998, he became full professor at the Department of Social Sciences of Education at the University of Minho Institute of Education. He also has been guest professor in several universities and other educational institutions in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. He is known for his contributions to ACE policy analysis and organizational and administration studies of institutions, schools, community centers, and popular adult education associations and also for having published extensively about Paulo Freire.

Lima is the author of more than 200 academic publications including 36 books, published in 19 countries and seven languages. With a former PhD student he created a theoretical model for the study of ACE public policies, published in Germany and in the United States (2011), which is much used by postgraduate students and other researchers. He has been teaching such subjects as adult education policies, popular and community education administration, sociology of educational organizations, and research methods in more than 20 universities, mainly in Europe and Latin America. Moreover, he has been engaged in a large number of international comparative studies and research projects working with many other well-known scholars. He directed several committees and working groups, especially in Portugal and in Cape Verde, appointed by governments and other public authorities with the aim of studying, evaluating, and proposing new ACE public policies and programs.

For 20 years Lima headed the UEA, the only university department fully dedicated to ACE in Portugal. He contributed to the development of four primary areas: 1) nonformal adult education programs in cooperation with municipalities, associations, community centers, hospitals, unions, corporations; 2) systematic academic research in cooperation with international partners, participatory-action research projects with local associations, and policy research programs for national, foreign, and European agencies; 3) international cooperation with African and Latin American countries in various ACE areas; and 4) editorial activities including translating and introducing to Portuguese readers international authors in the field.

Lima motivated and supervised a new generation of researchers who are now active in different educational institutions, research centers, governmental and non-governmental organizations. He has been active in cooperating with international organizations as one of the first members of the European Society for Research on the Education of Adults (ESREA). He was a founding and active member of the Portuguese Society of Education Sciences and of the Paulo Freire Institute of Portugal. In addition, he was the director of the non-academic journal Aprender ao Longo da Vida and he has published more than 100 articles and interviews in international and national newspapers, magazines, and pedagogic journals. He is frequently invited as a keynote speaker by universities and schools, national and local authorities, adult education centers, unions, political parties, and foundations to address issues concerning ACE’s present and future challenges.

In 1993, he was awarded the Rui Grácio Prize for the best research by the Portuguese Society of Educational Sciences, and in 2019 his contributions for science and education were recognized with the title Citizen of Honor by the City Council of Viana do Castelo, the city in northwest Portugal where he completed his studies prior to entering university.